Second Chance Hero
by AnnaNymose
Summary: She wasn't very good at doing things correctly. She wasn't very good at what she was supposed to have done. And in all measures, she was not a hero by any means. Nor, though, was she the opposite, and so found herself floating in a grey area, between good and bad, between alone and surrounded, between life and death, between a darkness and a second chance.
1. Two Roads Diverged

_-I want to thank you all first for taking the time to read this story. I understand that OC stories aren't extremely popular, but I try to make them as high-quality as possible. With that being said, I hope you enjoy and all constructive criticisms are welcome. -_

_-An Uncertain Time Ago-_

At the moment, she was small. No bigger than a child, a fragile thing in the expanse of snow around her. At the moment she was innocent, and her small hands reached up and felt the fur of North's jacket. She smiled and giggled, eyes lighting up under her thick woolen cap, red cheeks flushed with cold. At the moment she held inside of her a universe of potential, ready to expand out and become something fantastic, something to rival the greatest marvels of the world. At the moment, she was a child.

But he could tell, even from the far away moon, that these things were all temporary. If he could do anything at all, it was to see someone's path in life. And the Man in the Moon saw hers, saw what this little girl had in store for herself. Moments flashed before his eyes, and what he saw he would never say. But it was the reason he would save her. It was the reason he would cure and ailing little girl. It was the reason he would allow her to fall. What he saw, her path she would tread, was the reason for many things.

The Man in the Moon watched now as the small child stood a moment of complete bliss. Before everything else came to her, before the darkness and the fear, he watched over her. Because this child would do great things, yes. But first, her times would be dark, and her actions terrible...

_-Present Day-_

Snow was kicked up on black alley streets as the girl rushed behind houses and under dim street lamps. She moved with an assurity, a knot of fear tight in her stomach and a stone-like look on her face. Her eyes weren't looking past the shadows clinging to homes and fences, turning only when her perifrial caught an opening, praying it wasn't a dead end. The cold air bit at her, but she didn't take time to do anything more with her arms than help herself run. The plaid and grey hoodie would have to do, flying open behind her like a cape. Like she was some vigilante on the run.

Wet snow soaked her jeans up to her ankles, and after slipping for the second time, she decided it was time for a different route. And so, when she came to the street front of a row of houses, she hopped one of the gates and climbed up the white, cross-hatched garden wall attatched to the front of the house. All the while, she was listening for the pounding of hooves and watching the shadows for movements. Up on the roof, she paused to see if anything had seen her, if there were armies of them just waiting on the streets below.

Her panting breath prevented any real silence, but other than her being slightly out of shape everything else seemed strangely serene. There was that feeling where she knew she wasn't yet safe, but the threat seemed to be on the horizon. And the view from where she was was so pretty.

With a moment of half-hearted relief, she ran a hand along her sweaty forehead and across her hair, smoothing tiny strands back into the tiny ponytail. She scratched at the beads of sweat accumulating on the back of her neck, where her undershave was both heated from her skin and chilled from the air and snow that had kicked up into her face. It was a strange, uncomftorble sensation as she tried to heat up the stubble under the portion of her hair in the ponytail.

Her breath puffed out in front of her as she stood to a full height, eyes blinking out exauhstion and taking in the world around her. She did this, consuming her surroundings so that nothing could startle her. And over the years, she became very equipped at it, noticing thin layers of snow picking up in the wind, a light in a window flashing on, the chimeny on one house blowing more smoke than the other. She took in the dark lavendar sky, the muting sheets of snow that had fallen and silenced the world beneath them, the crystalized town that sat in a surreal silence around her.

She liked towns like this more, not because they felt like home, but because they were precisely the opposite. They were quiet and sleepy and calm. She breathed in a breath of ice-cold air, skin a mixture of flushed and cold, and let a chilly breeze wash over her. Her hands slid into her pockets with some forcing, heart still pounding but slowing at the sight of the serene suburban town. The shadows here weren't moving, and though she knew some had to be on the horizon, the nightmares didn't disrupt the Hallmark-card scene.

Again, she tried to tell herself she hadn't made a mistake, that she'd done the right thing. But these days, the right thing was usually tossed somewhere in the grey area. It was attatched to strings and smudged and she wasn't exactly sure she was good at discerning it anymore. Like always, she was lost, but at least she was lost somewhere beautiful.

She wiped the last of the moisture on her forehead on the white rag that was tied loosely around her neck, and felt a silver light fall over the town. She half-turned her head and looked up, seeing a navy blue cloud move out of the way, revealing the night's full moon. It stood there in the sky, a silver pupil, and shone down in an overtone of grey and white. The girl frowned and felt something receed in her chest, something akin to shame which she swallowed further down.

"What?"She asked flatly to it, "You finally gonna say something? Help me out some?"

But as always, the moon did not speak to her. The Man in the Moon remained up there, away from her, distancing himself from his wayward child. She scoffed at it and sniffed, opening her mouth to retort its silence when another sound covered her.

It was a whoosing, a tinkling, and a bright light on the street below. It was a blast of blues and a swirrling opening that led to nothing, popping up out of the thinnest of air. The clouds receeded as it burst into being, and the girl took a slight step back, moving her foot up the slanted roof to ready herself for running. Though she knew this couldn't be from the man she was running from, she had a general knowledge that anything coming out of a mysterious swirrling portal wasn't going to be friendly.

She tried not to look away from it, but a flash of moving darkness out of the corner of her eye made her whip her head around. It was gone around the corner of a home, but she caught the stray black streaks left on the ground. Knowing they were closer now, the girl felt every nerve in her body on edge, quickly looking back to the portal and wondering if it had all been a trick by him to distract her.

And then voices arrived seconds before the people who owned them did. The girl jumped back in shock and quickly scampered her way up to the top of the roof, albeit awkwardly and slipping in the snow a good few times. Kneeling on the evened out rooftop, she panted and looked behind her, then back forward to the group of strangers who had just arrived on the scene. Under the glow of a streetlamp, four people ran out, each in a different state of excitement and anticipation.

A young boy with white hair, a small man made of what looked like gold, a beautiful woman covered head to toe in glossy, green and purple feathers. The three of them burst from the portal and skidded to stops, the woman in the air propelled by wings that the girl couldn't see.

"What in the hell...?"She muttered, turning her head to the side and taking in the three of them. In the dark town streets, they didn't exactly look in place. The boy pointed a sheapard's crook forward, a devilish smile on his young face. The tiny man waved his little arms and up flew a cluster of sand, forming it into a ball and holding it in one hand, as if about to throw a baseball. And then there was the woman, whose head was twitching side-to-side like a bird.

She realized after a moment, after a quick and very, very amused moment, who these three had to be. It happened slowly, her chest siezing up and her eyes widening, sweat accumulating on her palms, body rising to stand without even being aware of it. These three had to be Guardians. And suddenly, she knew he had to have had a hand in this. This wasn't coincidental. He _knew_.

Their voices carried up, and the girl tried to move a foot, to at least attempt to hide herself. To get away. But nothing moved, and as she looked down, she saw more shadows darting around in farther alleys, red eyes streaking under streetlamps.

"Do you think they're really here, Jack?" The woman's voice was soft and light, and the boy took a few steps forward, cautiously.

"Bunny said so, didn't he? Unless the old rabbit-" Jack, the white-haired boy, was cut off by a final member of their group bursting forth through the portal, effectively closing it behind them and making the grandest entrance of them all. Swords brandished, bouncing to his feet and looking around in a half-crouched position, still making him much taller than any of the others.

"Vere are they, huh? No nightmare will stand up to me!"

The blood drained from her head, and everything focused in on this man. The very large man with the white beard. Larger now than he had been then, hair gone white, voice older. Oh, she should have moved. Had she moved, the entire mess could have been avoided. In that one moment of seeing him, of knowing his voice and the blue eyes that shone bright in the night, she remembered a man who was just as boisterous and loud, gung-ho and trigger-happy.

And in that moment, she wanted to dissapear. Because she knew the man. She knew the man from a very long time ago, on another side of the world. On that side of the world, she had known him very well. On this side, she had planned to never have to see this man again.

And so when she saw him, everything came crashing down on her, and she wished she had taken her chances with the nightmares than have ever come up to the roof. The man was moving around so fast that she didn't have time to react. The others had turned away to watch the shadows, but the large man in the red coat swung around to face the house. And he was so tall, his eyes caught sight of the figure on top of the roof.

A pain went through her chest, heart stopping, as his eyes caught her directly in their sight. She sucked air in, realizing he saw her, and was only still frozen for a moment. But a moment is a very long time, long enough to see the excited smile fall from his face, long enough to see light blue eyes widen, long enough to remember them looking down at her in amusement in a memory from long, long ago. The moment was long enough for all of that to happen after his moment of realization. It was long enough for her to think, _no, no, no, no, this can't be happening, _and then immediately afterwards to wonder how he had ever recognized her.

She was hardly who she had been the last time they'd been this close.

But the moment, as long as it was, ended, and her limbs remembered to move again. And the second they did, her horror and fear spiking enough that she knew what she was throwing herself into when she stepped off the roof, she jumped backwards. Snow and roof tiles blocked her vision until her foot hooked into the gutter of the home, and she pushed backwards. Rolling and falling awkwardly, she hit the grass of the backyard and ran.

She just ran. Running had become like breathing to her, whether she did it physically or metaphysically. And so it was easy to move her body, to make it to a treeline, every step thinking that behind her would be a man staring in horror or a nightmare with hot-coal eyes. She ran, not looking back, heart pounding hard in her chest, and thinking two thoughts. The first was of the man. How he'd seen her, and knowing what she did then, had probably seen her with horror on his face. That's what the look had translated to for her.

And the other thought was that this had been planned.

Anger swelled in her chest as this thought settled into her, arms pumping as she ran aimlessly in the forest. Roots did not trip her up, shrubs did not make her fall. Her body knew what to do for this was what she was best at. Getting away.

As she did, not needing to physically focus, she thought of what had started the day. Of a dark cave and a grey man and another kind of pain in her chest.

_"This again? Dear, we both know you're not serious."_

_"I won't. You need me, I'm the only thing that can make this work. If I leave, none of this happens and no one gets hurt. Don't you dare think you have any kind of leverage in this."_

_"Oh, really? Is that what you think?"_

_"Stop that! With the creepy rhetorical questions!"_

_"Go ahead then."_

_"..."_

_"That's what you want, is it? Go on. Be a hero, try and change the person you are. I'll be right here waiting when you come back. So go run along now. You'll just have to outrun...them."_

They didn't come for her, and she only stopped when a tree was right in front of her. She threw her hands in front of her and they slammed against the rough tree bark, her breath ragged and new cold sweat making her skin feel uncomftorble. The snow around her was still pristine, minus the torn trail she had run, making her knuckled numb enough to punch the tree before her and not feel too much pain. She grit her teeth and closed her eyes, resting her forehead on the bark.

How many times had she done this now? Run away that, is. How many times had it taken for her to run into him again, for her to leave that cave and finally see him. She turned and slid down the tree, sitting in the cold snow and wrapping her arms around herself, resting the back of her head on the tree. She looked up through the canopy at a dark lavender sky, blinking and chest heaving.

His face was older, his eyes still that light blue with the playful spark behind them. And she had to grind her palms into her temples to try and squash it all out. The horror on his face, both just moments before and another time, the last time before this. She wasn't ever supposed to see him again. Not after that, not after everything. Not even if she had stayed with the man who controlled nightmares, not even if she let him carry out his plan against the Guardians. She wasn't supposed to see him then. She clutched at the white cloth that hung around her neck, her breath fast and scared, trying to push out the memories it brought with it.

Her chest was still in pain from the shock and the anger. She should have known, really, that this close to the end that he wouldn't let her leave. She was a fool to think she could do it this time, just because she felt stronger, just because she'd gotten more fed up. And yet, wallowing in her shame and fear and trying to squash out his face, panicking that he was so close, she stood. She stood from the snow and sniffed at the chill around her, flexing numb hands and looking around.

And really, she shouldn't have, because when she did everything around her was dead. And it wasn't because of the snow, either. Even that had melted around her, in a perfect circle, leaving only the driest of dirt. The branches on the trees had shriveled, the leaves now releasing and falling to the ground, so fragile that they shattered on impact with the downy snow. Her hands clung to the tree behind her and her jaw clenched, looking around with wide eyes, breath coming in too fast as she tried to control it.

A perfect circle of dead vegitation around her reminded her of exactly why she was in this situation in the first place. Her heart still pounding from seeing a man again that she had sworn was out of her life, for his better, the girl closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, everything was still dead in a seven-foot radius around her, hands shaking and cursing quietly under her breath. Because this was what she did, wasn't it? She crippled everything around her. Innocent or not. She sucked in a breath and looked around again, cursing once more and fighting back a lump in her throat. Only one positive was clear.

No nightmares. Which meant he must be planning something still. But this time she shook her head and muttered quietly, breath coming out in angry clouds,

"Not this time, you grey stick-thing. You're gonna have to do better than this."

A wind rustled through the trees as she made a resolution to keep going, telling herself that she couldn't go back again. The leaves rustled and she swallowed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand and walking again. She swore that above her it sounded like a laugh, a cackling kind of laugh.

And Anastasia kept walking and trying to forget.

_-In A Town In Argentina-_

Nicholas St. North felt all of the air leave his lungs, his eyes darting across the roof where he knew she had just stood. He knew, he _knew_, it couldn't have just been his old eyes.

"Who was that? Just there?!" Tooth's voice broke through to him, urgent and flying up beside him, pointing to where she had just stood. Because it had been her. He knew, if everything else had changed, those eyes. He didn't answer her, just took a step back and looked down, shaking his head incredulously. "North? North what's wrong?"

"Huh?" Jack had turned to him now, his breath thin and looking up at Tooth's worried eyes. His long-time friend looked so concerned, and Sandy as well behind her. His eyes flicked up to the roof again and then back to her, Tooth looking confused.

"Did you know the person up there?" Suddenly she gasped, hands over her mouth, "Was it...Pitch?"

"Pitch? He was here?"Jack suddenly exclaimed, gripping the staff harder and looking around, "Someone should get Bunny and-"

"No, no."He managed to say in a thick Russian accent, looking to Tooth and Sandy.

"Then who? Someone was up there, right? I think I saw them."Tooth tried, and North attempted to form words in his mind. Words to describe what he had seen, because he himself did not really believe it. Believe that she had been standing there. He tried to count the years and found there were too many. He looked up at last, knowing his friends may not, as wonderful as they were, believe him. For, the Guardian of Wonder did not truly believe himself yet. But Tooth had seen, hadn't she?

"Was...I thought..."He blinked and said again, in a lower voice, "...Anastasia."

For a good moment, everyone looked thoroughly confused. Sandy got it first, eyes widening and looking up to the roof as if he could conjure her there again, just to make sure. Then Tooth, whose eyes went wide again and shook her head.

"Anastasia? You mean the one you-"

"Who?"Jack, young Jack who hadn't been around for nearly as long as the rest of them, asked. North couldn't explain, but didn't have to as the four of them were interrupted by a loud voice and a rabbit popping out of a hole in the cement that, moments ago, hadn't been there.

"Oi! Whadday you standin' around for, huh? I've been taking on some nightmares for the past few minutes and you all have been havin' a tea party!" He said it good-humoredly, the large blue-and-grey Pooka smiling until he saw the faces of his friends. Tooth's, now tense with worry, Sandy's furrowed brow and pouting mouth looking up at the roof, and then North who tried as hard as he could to compose himself, because...

...It wasn't possible, was it? He had hoped, he had _always hoped_...but could it have been true? Could she still be...?

"Uh, anyone wanna tell me what's up?"Bunny asked, putting a boomerang back into the sling around his chest, ears twitching.

"I'd like to know the same thing. North, did you see someone you know? Is it...someone bad, maybe?"Jack offered, and North saw his confusion with a pang of guilt. Half his mind was stuck on the girl on the roof, the other with his friends who looked so worried, so bothered over him when they were supposed to have fought back stray nightmares that had wandered after Pitch's defeat. He couldn't speak just yet, keeping a picture of the girl in his mind. He thought of her, piecing things together, trying to tell himself both that it wasn't and that it had to be her.

The hair was shorter now but the same dull blonde. And she was older, if just by a touch, than she had been before. Her skin was still olive. Her eyes were still scared. Her eyes still looked like little bluebird eggs. His little bluebird. She was gone so fast...

He shook himself, still half-numb, but knowing that if he was going to think it had to be surrounded by the noises and commotion of his Workshop. Looking back to his friends, resolving to think things through back in Santoff Claussen, he asked,

"Bunny, are there anymore out there?" Still a bit cautious and confused, Bunny scratched at his chest and nodded.

"None, mate, but what-"

"Very good, then let us...regroup back in Workshop. I have many things to think over..."He muttered the last part and barely shook the snowglobe before tossing it into the air, the portal exploding in blues and vibrant whites and silvers.

"I don't get it, what's going on? Did you guys see something? Who's-"

"Jack, not now. Later."Tooth hushed Jack like a child, and as North stepped through the portal, he gave only one more backwards glance to the rooftop where he knew she had stood.

In the dark winter night, the roof now stood empty.


	2. The Unforseen Flipside

_-The Workshop, Santoff Claussen-_

It was quiet now, which was an unusual thing for the Workshop. There were still the little noises of yetis screaming gibberish at elves, and elves knocking over contraptions, both of them riled up with Christmas coming so soon. But in North's office, the large wooden room with the huge window in the back, was silent. Bunny was warming himself by the fire, Tooth fluttering down near Jack, Sandy looking at all of this friends, no one saying a word. But all with the same worried look to the large Guardian of Wonder, who now stood at the window looking past his faint reflection, out onto the snowy drifts beyond.

Finally, and appropriately, it was Jack who broke the silence.

"So...what did I miss, exactly?" He leaned on the staff, eyeing everyone nervously. He knew very well that something had happened, something they knew and understood that he did not. He was used to this by now, all of their super-secret Guardian things that he hadn't been let in on yet, either because he was too young or it was something so old that they'd forgotten. But this...he'd never seen North react to something like this. He seemed out of it, lost, even if he were trying to contain himself.

So it was Tooth who answered Jack as North gazed out the window, unblinking with a sad look on his face that looked so, so wrong on the man who was, literally, jolly ol' St. Nick.

"North...well, he thinks that he saw someone he knew once. Someone he told us about a very, very long time ago." Her voice was delicate, and her eyes flickered to North as she spoke, as if afraid of offending him. Jack screwed up his face and tilted his head, looking to Bunny who seemed to be as in the dark as he was, which gave him a bit of comfort. He'd never known North to know...well, anyone but them. He knew there were scattered others out there, but the Guardians always seemed to be solitairy.

"What, like...an old friend or something?"Jack tried, and Tooth splayed her hands out, shrugging.

"...Or, something."She agreed carefully. Sandy made signs above his head, sand images that went too fast for Jack to read. He was getting good at it, deciphering what Sandy was trying to communicate, but apparently not good enough. Bunny, on the other hand, seemed to have left Jack alone in the 'Clueless Club', because he straightened up and his eyes flew wide open.

"Wait...you're not serious? I thought that she ran-"

"_Bunny._" Tooth warned through her teeth, nodding to North. But, from what Jack could tell, North didn't even know they were in the room. Bunny kept his mouth open, but was still looking around wide-eyed. And now, as the only person who did not know, a gnawing feeling was eating away at Jack's gut. They were hiding this either from him or North, and he didn't like either scenario. He was comftorble with the Guardians, but after 300 years it takes awhile to trust that he isn't being neglected.

"Is this some big Guardians secret that I can't know?"Jack asked, slightly hurt. Tooth looked at him with big, surprised eyes, shaking her head. Tooth, who was always the best at chasing away Jack's fears of being left alone, swooped closer to him so that she could whisper. Sandy and Bunny gathered around, looking back at North who still stood at the window. Then she whispered,

"No, Jack, it's just that...you see, North and the person we saw knew each other a very long time ago. But then they had a bit of a falling out, and the person's been gone for a long time. I mean a very long time. North knew this person before he ever knew us." Jack cocked his head in surprise.

"But I thought you guys went way, way back?"

"We do. But in the beginning...we didn't meet each other for awhile after we were chose. There was a blanket of a few hundred years that we spent not knowing that there were others like us, and that's when North knew this person. Seeing her again, it must be like..."

"Seeing ghost." North's voice spooked everyone, and they all sprang out of their huddle to see him looking at them, that sad look still in his eyes, one hand on his desk. Before Tooth could speak, North hushed her with a hand and looked to Jack. "Jack, I do not want you to feel as if we are leaving you out. And I apologize for my behavior, I am just...very surprised, is all." He walked around his desk and, as he did, pulled a book from his shelf without looking, as if he knew exactly where it was.

When he held it, it looked so much older than all his other books. And much more unkept. Dust covered it thickly, and the spine cracked loudly as he opened it with careful fingers. Jack got the impression that North had never opened this book.

"North, you don't have to now, if you don't want to-"

"I do,"North silenced Tooth, "for Jack. And maybe...maybe for myself, as well." He said the last part so quietly that Jack wondered if he'd meant to say it out loud. He looked up at Tooth, half concerned and half apologetic, not wanting to act like any of this was North's fault. It wasn't, it was his insecurity in belonging to this group, no one individual's fault. But North began without consent, looking to Jack and saying these words to something beyond them.

To North, though, he was speaking to an old friend. He looked to his friends, yes, and knew they all stood there and worried about him. He felt terrible, just terrible, with the fuss he was making, but there was a chill in his spine and a heavy weight in his heart. He had to tell this tale to himself, hoping MiM might hear, for it was a story he had not heard in a very long time. The guilt of that pushed him to speak.

"Long ago, when I first became Guardian, children could not see me like they could not see you." Jack's eyes widened, straightening up a bit.

"Really? There was a time when kids didn't see Santa?"Jack sounded incredulous, and North felt the smallest flicker of happiness that this was something he could share with Jack. Something they could have in common, which was something very hard to find with the young Guardian. He nodded, thumbing through the book and looking up to Jack, silently motioning him forward. He did move up, and so did the others.

Tooth fluttered above the desk over his left shoulder, Sandy over his right. Jack perched on the corner of the desk and leaned on the staff, looking far over. And Bunny, arms crossed and looking curious, North having never gone into extreme details, stood on North's over side. On the pages was an ink drawing of a very young, much slimmer Nicholas St. North brandishing two swords, a bag of toys simultaneously over his shoulder. Jack whistled, which made North get the faintest of smiles.

"That was me, many years ago. Before even then, children did not see me because they did not understand the concept of a Santa yet, and their wonder was not yet cultivated. It took me a long time to get to where I am now, you see. At first, I leave toys and the children do not understand. Their little theories buzzing in heads, but no one saw me for many years..." Here he paused, and he could feel the concern of his friends eminating towards him. He hefted a deep breath, and continued with the next page.

For this book was an anthology of North's life, and these were the first few pages. So it was only natural that she be on them, playing a key role in his beginnings.

And there she was.

"Who's that?"Jack asked, leaning closer to the picture of a young girl smiling and holding a small, white cloth. North wanted to smile at the picture, too, but couldn't quite bring himself to. He saw the little white cloth in her hands, the first gift he'd given her. The gift that changed his life.

"That is my first believer." North explained in a reverent tone, looking at the small girl in the large overcoat, messy blonde hair cut unevenly in her face.

"Really? So like Jamie!"Jack exclaimed, and North nodded, a warmth spreading across his chest.

"Her name was Anastasia, but she did not like the name, you see? Too hard for a small babushka to pronounce. So I called her 'Anna', instead. That gift I gave her looks small, but at the time it was the most I could do. See, very early, yes? Maybe this was why it took so long for someone to believe...or maybe she was just special girl. Yes, I think she was just special..."

_ She looked at him with a mix of wonder and astonishment, her eyes blue like bluebird eggs and her face red from the cold. The coat she wore was much too large and her mittens too thin for the fridgid Russian weather, this was why he had dropped off this thin bit of white cloth. It could do her well as a scarf, possibly. That was all he had meant by it. Just another gift to a child he noticed very often._

_ But now she looked at him. At him, not through him. Nicholas St. North had almost forgotten what that felt like, to be seen. It made him feel very solid, and suddenly everything else seemed very bright and in focus around this tiny girl. If her face held astonishment, his was tenfold. Because the Man in the Moon had told him that they would see him soon, yes. But he'd never imagined it would feel like this. So...filling._

_ "Are you a ghost?"She asked in a hushed and child-like voice. His face broke immediately into a smile, kneeling in the snow so that he was eye-level to her, and he laughed uproarously like he did. The girl didn't even miss a beat as she laughed right back, sniffling in the cold. North tapped her nose with his mitten and said with a beaming smile, everything suddenly overwhelmingly wonderful and lovely,_

_"Oh no, little one! I am no ghost! I am...Guardian! Yes, I am the Guardian of wonder. Do you feel wonder now, babushka?" She nodded vigorously, and held up the white cloth._

_"Thank you, sir!"_

_"Oh, don't call me sir! Nicholas St. North, my special one. And what should I call you? You are my first believer, do you know? No one else has ever seen me before, that makes you special. A special girl must have a special name!" _

_"I do, but it's hard for me to pronounce. But I know how to spell it!"_

_"Ah! And smart! Yes, then, spell it for me!"_

_"A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-A. I call myself Anna."_

_"Anastasia! The name is lovely. But I think I, too, like Anna..."_

"What's that sign say?"Jack's question prompted North to pull himself from his own mind, looking down at the cracked, paint-peeling sign that read a word in Russian. North frowned, saying simply,

"It means, 'orphanage'."

"She was an orphan?"Jack sounded sad, yes, but also...sympathetic. He shifted closer and asked in a quieter voice, one laced with sadness, "What happened to her parent?"

"Ah."North said, "Sickness. Back then, it was common. Both caught a terrible illness, and when Anna was just two, they passed. The village was small, and she had no one else but those at the orphanage. Even there, she always said she felt a bit removed. She was indeed special, and her imagination ran wild. I have never known a child so young to be so full of life."

"She sounds like she was pretty cool."Jack was smiling now, looking at the blue-eyed girl in the snow. North almost smiled, too. And in fact he absolutely would have...except he knew how the story ended.

"Then, after a few years, after I had many more believers than when I had started because of her wild tales, Anna...became sick." North felt Jack tense up, and a light hand fell on his other shoulder. Tooth's small hand giving his shoulder a squeeze, as if to either say 'go on' or 'you may stop'. But he couldn't stop now, not halfway through. He would see this to the end, and maybe find an answer in it.

"Back then we did not know of illnesses that go through family blood. There was little they could do, and she was still so young."

"...So what happened?"Jack asked quietly beside him. And North answered as he remembered, the words and images rolling in tandem.

_ "Man in Moon...please, I beg you. I know she is just child, but...I am supposed to protect her, no? Protect the children of the Earth?" His voice cracked, looking out the window in the small, chilly room of the orphanage. He was permitted in only because the doctor knew she had no chances. North could do her no more harm than she would meet soon on her own. _

_ His chest ached, one hand wrapped firmly around her small, clammy fingers, seeing an olive-skinned face in a restless sleep, seemingly calm but too tensed, too solid. Nothing of her was as soft as it normally was. She was nineteen years of age, and yet she looked like a woman breathing her last, labored breaths. North looked back out of the open window(again, having the window open only showed how little faith the people had in her chances). There, the moon was being veiled by thin clouds, only showing half of himself at a time. _

_ "Please..."North whispered for the little girl who, at this point, was like a daughter to him, "...I can't lose her, Manny. The world, it cannot lose a girl like this."_

_ And then something miraculous happened._

_ The clouds were suddenly and dramatically brushed aside, revealing the moon in all it's radiant beauty. Silver light cast down from the sky and a column of it fell through the window, igniting the room in a brilliant display of glowing moonlight. North scooted back in the chair he sat in, eyes wide as the light soaked onto Anna, a silver light refracting off her skin and closed lids. And as it did, as a hope soared into North, a disembodied voice spoke to him in soft tones._

_"Nicholas St. North, you have just given the greatest gift of all."_

_ Anna breathed in deeply, and her hand warmed in his for the first time in days, eyes flickering under her lids. A strange, tingling warmth spread over his hand, her skin freshened, and suddenly she looked as if all of Life itself had concentrated itself into a point within her. On the opposite side of her bed stood a small table, and on it two flowers that had wilted days before. And now, as she breathed in and a strange energy emitted from her very skin, North watched as the flowers straightened._

_ Their stems grew stiff and green, the petals forming again into beautiful whites and blues, the leaves rising back up to their natural beauty. The flowers were alive again. North could feel his heart pounding, a joy and astonishment overwhelming the large man. And the soft voice said,_

_"A second chance."_

"Woah! So MiM gave her powers, and suddenly she was cured? Wicked!"Jack exclaimed, and North nodded.

"Yes, we soon found out that she had a very, very special talent of bringing back what was very near death. Flowers, animals, people once or twice. She was warned only to use it in the upmost emergencies, but Anna was responsible, too mature for her age."North recalled.

"So, was she...you know, did she live forever like us? Is that how you saw her tonight?"Jack's question was innocent, but North felt a crushing weight on his chest. His eyes closed and he breathed in, hands gripping the fragile book. And he opened them again, looking sadly down at the book and the picture of the girl he had failed so many years ago.

"I asked Manny if she was to become Guardian...and he said she had many obstacles to go through. I did not understand then. But I understand now." He paused here, and everyone gave him time to finish his tale. It took him awhile, but finally the words made it through his mouth. "She was very upset one day. It was not unusual, it was the anniversary of her parents' passing away, and she..."

_"Anna! I know es hard, but you must let me help! This is not pain that one person can have!"_

"...There was bird that stood and watched, like it was curious. Just standing, looking at us with its little bird eyes. And Anna got angry, she got very angry and very scared, which were not things she used to be, but at this time they were growing. Her uncertainty of her own power, of if she could actually do good, of if she deserved her gift..."

_"Stop! Just...just stop! I didn't deserve any of this if my parents didn't! What was I, some little kid? They were good people, these children that we watch grow up, they're good people! So why me, I'm not better than them!"_

"...And then something happened. It was...terrifying. It was wrong, not like her usual power. Where the air would have become light, the world bright and full of refreshed light...there was a deep, pressing feeling. A jolt. There was the sound of a tiny flutter..."

_"...What- oh my god!"_

_"Anna...what happened?"_

_"I-I don't know...did I do that?"_

_"Anna-"_

_"I did that! I..."_

"The little bird was cold and stiff on the snow. That was the day we learned that her powers had another side to them...she could grant life, and take it away...and it was too much for her. She already did not think she was worthy of giving life, of saving people. It was too much a gift for her then...after, it scared her. She was so scared...I could not stop her."

_"I killed it."_

_"Anna- Anna stop! Anna! Come back, where are you going?!"_

The others looked at North then, as he closed the book heavily and laid it back on the desk.

"I know it was her tonight...but it does not make difference." North brushed off, but the heaviness remained on his face. Jack jumped down from the desk as North walked towards the fire, the others allowing him ample space.

"What, why?"Jack asked, following him. North shook his head, waving a hand.

"She will not want to see me. If she did, she would have come back long ago...she would not have run tonight. I failed her then, I was supposed to look after her as she learned to deal with her gifts."

"But she was scared, that isn't your fault."Tooth offered gently. Jack's voice broke through the tense air, a misplaced excitement that made everyone turn their head to him.

"Yeah! I bet she just needed space! I mean you definitly aren't the same guy as you were then, North, with all those cookies. No offense. But really, North, how long has it been? Centuries? More than that I bet. She has to have pulled herself together, maybe she's just...scared. Maybe she just needs to know you remember her, that you still care about her!" Jack was practically jumping as he spoke, a gleam of excitement in his eye.

"Jack, I do not think-"

"What if I find her?" North gave him an incredulous look.

"Find her? Mate, the shiela's been missing for over three thousand-"

"What if? North, you're a great person and I don't want to see you like this, all broken up. You're Santa, for MiM's sake, and Christmas is coming up! You have to cheer up. So what if I find her and convince her to come here and talk to you, would you do it?" Jack had one hand firmly on the sheapards crook, a smile on his face. North looked down at the Guardian of Fun, a warmth and a nervousness spreading in his chest.

Jack could be selfless like this and not realize what he was doing for people. North loved that about him, it was one of the reasons he so wanted Jack to realize how much they would do for him. But what he was offering...could North stand to look her in the eyes, knowing how he'd failed her?

He paused, looking at a hopeful Jack. That trust he had, that excitement, that hope.

And Jack, and a relentlessly optimistic voice in his head, made him give a light smile.

"If you think you can, Jack, but I am not-"

"Alright, great!"Jack whooped, and raised the staff up high, a ferocious wind slamming open the door and lifting the lithe boy into the air before anyone could protest.

"Jack, be careful!"Tooth called as he soared out of the room, with a promise to North to bring back Anna. When he was gone, the Guardians stood in the room, each looking to where Jack had left. "Isn't this great? North, what if you two can make up?" Tooth gave a gasp, "What if she became friends with all of us? There would be another girl! Oh!"

"Yeah, great."Bunny muttered, Sandy and Tooth doing their best to cheer North up. Bunny had his own reasons for his hesitation, scratching his chest and frowning at the window. He did remember when North had told him about the girl, and that look that crossed North's face then, that he had moments ago...he didn't like it. He didn't like the girl who had caused it. He didn't like people who ran out on friends.

And he didn't like to think that it could ever happen to his friend again.

_-London, England-_

She didn't like it here much. Everyone sounded like the man she was running run, albeit without the undertones of a homicidal, generically evil cackle. But it was beautiful, sitting there on the very top of a bridge, unseen to the tourists and locals below, looking at the London Eye, the Queen's Bridge, and Parliament all in one line of sight. It was the kind of beautiful that could almost make her forget.

She rubbed her neck and cursed, looking at the freedom of the people and the River Thames. It was cold there, colder than she felt it should be. And something was eating at her. Being alone was something she strived for...but not something she found much comfort in. She'd run before, and she liked not to think of those years. And then when she was picked up, metaphorically, by that man...

He was terrible, and she wouldn't try to excuse anything...

But he had been company. And now, after such a long time, she had to come back to the fact that she did terribly on her own. And this, above all, was what drove her back every time. She had lasted longer now than ever before, but even she started to wonder how long she could go by herself.

Anna was caught, she knew, in a destructive cycle. She could not be alone. And, simultaniously, whenever she was around someone she ended up destroying everything she could possibly touch. There was no grey area for her. Only a crashing wave, moving back and forth, hoping that this time things could be different. That this time, just this once, things would end up better.


	3. Stubborn Persuation

_-I apologize for the late post. On the weekdays updates may be a bit slower, especially near thursday and friday. Enjoy-_

_-A Small Town in Ireland-_

Almost...almost...there! She caught a snowflake on her tongue through much maneuvering and cursing. It fell, cold and almost weightless, and melted onto her tongue as she smiled. She stood on a bank of snow, looking slightly down at the village before her, tiny houses with beautiful yards and little children out running and laughing on the icy streets. She balled her hands up in her pockets after pulling the grey hood on over her head, tiny snowflakes drifting down and landing on her face and shoulders.

It had been a week today that she'd run from him. Three days since the incident. And while she didn't feel one-hundred percent, she'd never actually felt one-hundred percent, so she decided that she was doing okay. She hadn't yet grown comftorble with being alone, but she also hadn't seen any nightmares for three days, and it was a beautiful winter, and she was alive. She was taking positives in tiny increments.

Anna was watching two children race to see who could slide down the icy road the farthest without falling down. She saw the girl skid and take the boy down with her, both tumbling and ending up plowing into the snowbank below. A laugh came from her, throwing her head back as the kids scuddled out, their own chorus of giggles joining Anna's.

"Kids are kinda funny, huh?"

"_Jesus Christ!_"

The voice came from nowhere, or what Anna had percieved as nowhere, and made her entire body jolt backwards, heart stopping painfully and causing her to stumble backwards. And she would have fallen sideways into the street below had a very, very cold hand not shot out and grabbed her arm, pulling her forward in a second and balancing her. Eyes wide, panting, Anna looked at the person who had frightened her.

And recieved her second unwelcome shock when she saw that it was the white-haired boy from three nights ago.

"Hey, don't look so excited to see me!" He joked, but Anna couldn't laugh right now. Not when a thousand reasons for this boy being here were flashing through her mind. She took another step back to balance herself, keeping her eyes on him and tilting her head.

"I don't even think I know who you are."She retorted, and he faked insult, putting a hand dramatically to his chest and scoffing.

"I'm insulted! I really am! I know you aren't exacty the socialite of this side of the people-spectrum, I mean it did take me three days to find you, but really! I'm Jack Frost, Guardian of Fun, _the absolute and literally coolest guy ever._" He explained, leaning on the staff, mischief and humor dancing in his eyes. She tried not to smile, but this boy was making it a bit hard to remember why she shouldn't still be there. He knew him. He knew Nicholas, he was a Guardian, so he had to know...

Wait.

"Hold on, you've been...looking for me?" She reiterated, suddenly every alarm in her head going off at once. Jack Frost, the boy, maybe sensed this, because he immediately held out a hand and his eyes went wide, his tone a touch more serious now.

"Not, like, in a sinister kinda way! Alright, maybe 'sinister' isn't the best word. Um, uh, listen, don't run away okay? It took me a long time to find you and I'm just doing this all for a really close friend. You don't know me and I really don't know you, kind of, in a sense...I'm doing really bad at this, aren't I?"

With a confused expression, Anna gave a slow nod. The flustered Guardian ran his fingers through his hair and took in a breath, trying to compose himself. In all honesty, she didn't think he'd thought this through past his opening remarks. And all at once, her trepidation towards this boy slowly filtered out. His reasons and intentions still kept her on edge, but of the handful of other people like her, who were gifted in the same respect, he was by far the least intimidating.

And afterall, he didn't look a day older than sixteen, possibly seventeen.

"Alright,"He finally said after a pause, "I just need you to hear me out, okay?" Anna paused this time, sliding her hands back into her jean pockets and shaking off her hood to give her time to think. Then nodded.

"Alright, Frosty..."She swallowed, finding her breath, "...This is about..."And it was then that she realized something. She had to say his name. His name that she knew in her bones, the name she used to use daily, the name that jumped out at her in the night when she woke up sweating and shaking and terrified. This name that she hadn't said in centuries. She swallowed again and took in a pained breath, trying to hide everything on the outside. "...This is about North, isn't it?"

North. There, easier. Not Nicholas, not Nick, North. North she could do for now, that was easier than anything else.

Jack nodded his head towards the street, asking in a calmer voice,

"Walk and talk?" Anna liked this boy. Walking was easier than standing. It gave an excuse not to look in the eye, and she would already have momentum if she had to haul ass out of there. So, Anna nodded and make her way clumsily down the snowbank, only to look back and see him caught up in some isolated wind current, drifting easily to the ground like a little snowflake.

Snowflake. In a strange moment, she thought that she liked that name for him.

"My lady."He offered his arm jokingly, and Anna did all she could from not scoffing at him, shoving the boy and walking forward. She had hoped he wouldn't follow somehow, but then heard his footsteps slapping the ground next to her. It was a strange sound, and when she looked down she saw a pair of bare feet next to her old red boots.

"Jeez, Snowflake, aren't your feet...oh, winter spirit. Duh."She corrected herself, and he laughed as he swung the staff across his shoulders.

"Yeah, the cold doesn't bite me so much. But, getting back on track, my shoeless feet are the least important subject. You, my mysterious friend, are today's topic." He dodged a few kids as they ran by, and while Anna really did want to stay on topic in order to move past this ordeal, she was taken aback very abruptly.

"They can't see you?" She didn't mean for it to sound so surprised, and immediately tried to take the words back when Jack gave her a calm smile and shrug.

"More and more kids are, but it's taking awhile. I mean, in North America? Tons of kids, I get mobbed in grocery stores. Really, I'm like a Kardashian!" She bit her lip, but still snorted anyway, shaking her head and lifting her foot up as another very, very small boy ran under it. "I take it they don't see you, either?"

"No, only a handful ever have...and that was quite a long time ago."She explained, both of them continuing down the street into a brightly lit area, Christmas lights hanging from roofs and mailboxes.

"Back when you knew North?"

Oh, wow, okay. That hurt a bit more than she thought it would, and covered the sudden pang by clearing her throat and nodding. So he knew some things. But how much, and how accurate, she wasn't sure. Had North told him about her as a monster? Had he told Jack how she betrayed and left the people who needed her?...To be honest, that wouldn't even be the worst of what she'd done, except that North had no idea what the worst really was.

"I'm new, in case you couldn't tell, so before you get to thinking that I have any age-old prejudices against you, I don't. I just know what North told me, after everyone saw you that night three nights ago. He was...kind of out of it, you know? I don't think you two have talked in awhile." He paused, and Anna almost smiled at the understatement. Her hands found their way back into her pockets as a cold breeze blew by, chilling her face.

"What rendition of the story did he tell you?"She asked.

"Huh?"

"Good or bad? I don't think North can ever really talk bad about a lot of people, but man, I wouldn't blame him..." She bit her tongue to keep from going on, and recovered awkwardly, "...So, good or bad?"

"...Do you- do you think North's angry at you?" Jack sounded incredulous, and Anna turned to him, both stopping slowly to look at the other in confusion. Jack leaned one hand on the staff and Anna looked him up and down, not understanding why he sounded so...shocked. And that he was actually waiting for an answer.

"Yes, yes I do. What exactly did he tell you happened?"She demanded, knowing that any rendition of the story wasn't flowery or delicate. It was harsh and terrible, and it was about a girl who destroyed everything around her.

"He told me you were given a gift, from the Man in the Moon."Jack spoke with a soft voice and a sympathetic face, one that let Anna know he was much older than he appeared, "And that you could save things from dying. And that you did. He told me your parents were sick, and so were you, but you were given a chance to do something amazing-"

"Is that what he told you?" She sharply interrupted him, her voice acidic and bitter, shaking her head. Jack was surprised, blinking fast as she went on. "He told you I had a gift, and I could save things? That's cute. And let me guess, he didn't leave out how I used that gift, the lovely little flipside that Manny didn't feel like sharing with me."

She didn't know this boy. She'd hardly spoken to him for more than a few minutes. And yet here she was, in the middle of a street of oblivious children, anger and fear and anxiety that had balled up inside of her finally coming undone, lashing out on this poor, innocent boy. And she tried to stop herself, but she couldn't. She heard what he'd said, but had to get out her own words. Had to hear them, instead of keeping them inside of her.

"Did he tell you how I was so insecure about my own redemption that I lashed out at him? Did he ever tell you that, since I didn't know what the flipside of my gift was, I could have easily killed him dozens of times? Or how about this: He ever tell you that I ran away, and people died because I couldn't handle myself? Because that's what happened Jack, and let me tell you this, you can't sugarcoat something like that.

"I ran away from him, the only person who ever took care of me. And from the people who needed me. So tell me, Jack, really, why are you here?"

She let out a breath, biting the inside of her cheek and mentally screaming. This boy, this kind and funny and clumsy boy, had been nothing but nice to her, and now how did she look? Awful, rude, a thousand other things that she could think of. She had to get it out, had to alleivitate that pressure building inside of her...she just wished it hadn't been on Jack.

Anna couldn't face him, turning away and looking at the cobblestone road, foot grinding into the ground and deciding to leave, just in the same instance that he spoke.

"I get it, okay? Really, I do."

"How? Jack, seriously, I just...I-"

"Make a mess wherever you go?"

She looked up at him, surprised to see him giving a kind-hearted smirk and that same sad look in his eyes. Like he did understand. He kept going before she could talk, before she could run, before she could lash out again.

"I didn't even know what my powers were for when I started. For 300 years, MiM never said a word to me, nothing other than my name. And then a lot of bad stuff happened, some of it my fault, when the Nightmare King rose up awhile back. Did you hear about that?" He asked, and Anna tried so hard not to look pained. She nodded non-comittaly. "Yeah, well, the charming Pitch Black tried to turn me against the Guardians. He tried to get me to help him spread fear and darkness and cold.

"And I almost gave in. So I know what it's like to feel like you've done everything wrong and nothing can be right again. But it can. I mean, look at me! Dashingly hansome Guardian of Fun, just add water."

And she wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell this boy who she barely knew that he was so much better than she was. That he was stronger and kinder and better. He'd been tempted, he said that he almost gave in, and she just wanted to scream it, wanted to shout at the top of her lungs that he had way too high an opinion of her. Because he had almost given into Pitch Black. And she had given in.

No 'almost'.

"Anna, North told us what happened the day you ran away. And I can't speak for the others, but I can speak for North and I when I say that we understand why you made that choice. You were scared, we all get scared. You probably more rightfully so, I mean that's a lot to throw on someone's shoulders...but you deserve to be happy again." Jack tried, hands tight on the staff, frost designs feathering out across it.

"...Why are you here, Jack?"Anna asked suspiciously, and he took in a deep breath.

"North means a lot to me, to all the Guardians. And I think you're a really cool person. And I think that you two should meet again." He spit out three sentences almost all at once, and because he was thinking, he jumped in front of Anna and stood strongly, not hostile but perfectly ready to block her from moving any which way. And to say that her chest didn't tighten, to say that she didn't pull in a breath, would be lying. But to say that she also hadn't expected that to be a possibility, that would also be a lie.

Her answer was already on her tongue before Jack finished his last sentence, and it came out fast and deciding.

"No."

"What? Why?"

"Give it some thought, Snowflake, I'm sure it'll come to you." Anna's tone wasn't as harsh as it had been, but now barriers were being set up and she was itching for a way out of this conversation.

"Oh, come on! It's been, what, centuries? You can't still be angry at him!"He exclaimed, and Anna had turned to make her way back down the street when his words stopped her cold. She slowly turned back, brow furrowed and mouth open, tilting her head and asking incredulously,

"Wait...I'm not the one who's angry in this mess. You think I'm angry at...?"She stopped, realizing that he was serious. That he thought Anna could ever possibly be justifiably angry about anything. When everything was her fault, when everything rested on her inadequacy, he thought she was the angry one. "Jack, maybe you misheard North, because there's no way you got me being angry out of what happened."

Jack straightened up a bit, realization dawning across his face as Anna turned away and began to walk. She hoped he wouldn't, but Jack followed quickly, hovering inches from the ground and keeping in front of her, trying to catch her wandering eyes as he spoke.

"Hold on, if you're not angry, you think North's angry? Is that why you're running away?"

"I am not-...actually, you know what? You can have that one. I'm running away, alright? Like a teenager that hasn't seen centuries pass. And it's kind of the one thing I'm sort of good at doing, so if you would please excuse me..." She tried to shove past him, but Jack was quick.

"Hey, hey! Fine, I'll let you go, but I'm not going until you say yes." His smile was back, devilish and glinting, holding his arms out and shrugging. Anna paused a moment, looking him up and down and trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. She waved a hand at him and said over the sudden giggles of children a street over,

"Jack, you can't just follow me! Don't you have, I don't know, Guardian responsibilities to do?" He shrugged and deadpanned,

"No, not really."

Anna didn't take him seriously in that moment, giving him a look and asking,

"Why are you so bent on this? You don't know me."

"I know North. And I don't have to know someone to want them to be happy, you know?" He leaned on the staff as he said this, grinning, "Besides, like I just said, I don't have anything better to do."

Again, Anna didn't believe him in that moment.

But she soon would come to realize that, when it came to the Guardian of Fun, relentlessness was one of his many attributes.

_-Idaho, United States-_

She sniffed, her nose running in the fridgid temperatures. It even felt cold indoors, the chill seeping up from the floor of the grocery store and moving around, stirred in the air by the impatient children and the tired parents. This, and only this, was a reason Anna enjoyed being unseen. No manuvering, no apologizing, just walking straight forward as people passed straight through her. The hardest part was finding an open aisle, one where no one would see a box of crackers mysteriously hovering off the shelf.

It wasn't that she was particularly hungry, or that she enjoyed the ambiance of a germ-filled grocery store. It was more that she was doing anything to get her mind focused. Going into crowded placed, seeing the people and the bright lights and the cheesy packaging, all of this settled her. She hadn't grown up with any of this, in fact she stopped aging at a time where nothing here was even thought of, and yet Anna found a strange sense of peace around how the world was today. It was easier to stop thinking.

The asile, mostly empty spare a child running across one end, had rows and rows of impossibly neat-stacked boxes. The calm overtook the uneasiness she felt, being so out of her element in such a trivial place. This wasn't a cave. It wasn't a dark forest. It wasn't a Russian tundra. So for now, it was perfect.

Anna's finger ran over the boxes like the spines of books and stopped when she saw one she liked, reaching in and pulling it from the shelf.

And then had a heart attack.

"Ahhh!" She screamed, tossing the box to the side and flying back to the opposite shelf, looking into the blue eyes of the face that had appeared behind the box.

"Hey!"Jack pipped, and Anna groaned, grinding her fists into her eyes to get herself to see straight. When she opened them, Jack was in her aisle, picking up a box and placing it back where his face had just been. Frustration boiled over inside of Anna, an anger and an annoyance that coiled up inside of her and ached in her bones. She couldn't even articulate, but instead stormed through the store and out the front door, into the snow banks that made up the parking lot.

She knew he was following her, as he had been doing for a week now. She'd thought that after a day or so he would leave, especially when she slipped him in Moscow. But there he was, everywhere she went, with the same smile. And everytime, he pushed the same subject. Every day. For a week. And finally, Anna had had enough.

"Idaho! I went to _freaking Idaho!_ How did you follow me here?! Is this even an American state?"She exclaimed as they walked past the store and across the street to a row of houses, making their way along the sidewalk. Jack laughed and walked next to her, swinging the staff across his shoulders.

"Of course it is! Aren't potatoes a big thing in Russia?"

"What century are you in, man? No, actually, no. This has got to stop. You can't keep...following me everywhere I go! If I say I don't want to see him, then I won't see him! Ever." Anna stressed. She panted, her hands open and pulled close to her, trying to find a way to tell Jack that she wanted him to drop the subject, and at the same time not leave.

Because she was terrible at being alone.

Jack wasn't a friend, she wouldn't think that until he explicitly stated it, but he was company. He was fun company, pun not intended. And from what little she assumed he was told about her, he seemed to know enough to still want to be near her. Anna hadn't met anyone like that since...well, honestly, in centuries. And without that person having darker alterior motives, never. She had tried to deny it at first, but the more he showed up, the more he made her inevitably laugh until her ribs hurt, she realized she didn't quite mind having him around.

"Anna,"His voice was reasoning and calm, the smile still lazily on his face, "I promise to MiM and anything else out there, this will be the very last time that I ever ask you again. But please just hear me out, okay? I promise." She stared at him long and hard, crossing her arms against the cold and that completely trusting look in his eyes. And something inside of her made her nod her head. Jack nodded up to a roof and he kicked up the wind, carrying himself up there. Anna, being restricted to more Earth-bound modes of transportation, climbed up.

He cleared her a spot in the snow and they sat on the roof, looking out into the evening blue-yellow sky.

"You have one shot, Frosty, make it count."Anna explained, with no expectation what-so-ever of him making a decent case.

And she was wrong.

"North told us everything. All about you, from before he first met you to the moment you left, and I know I've said that I understand a hundred-"

"Two hundred."

"Hey! I'm on a time crunch! Hush up! Anyway, where was I?...Oh yeah! But that doesn't mean anything, I get it. You don't know me, I barely know you...but this is about North. And I know North, maybe not as well as you and maybe not for as long, but I know enough to see how broken up he is about this. You think he's angry but he isn't, I swear I never saw an ounce of anger in him when he was talking about you. You know what I did see though?

"I saw a man who lost someone important." Anna shifted in the snow, her hands clenched around her knees, trying to look anywhere that wasn't Jack. "He's a little better now, but not by much. It wasn't seeing you that upset him, Anna, it was that he wants to _see you_ again. He misses you. Think about it this way: All those years you spent thinking he hated you, maybe not liking yourself very much either, and he just...he just missed you."

There was a heavy silence, and Anna was biting down so hard on the inside of her cheek that she tasted an irony kind of taste, focusing on taking in breath.

"Anna, you wanna know something? One time I did something really stupid, and North forgave me. If you mean as much as I think you do to him, then I know he'll forgive you too. Just talk to him, just let him see you again if that's all you want to do."

And that silence was deafening. It screeched in her head and thumped against her ribcage, permiating the air around her with thick staccatto noises. But at the same time, it was still. Inside it was havoc, but outside it was a stale kind of stillness that waited for her answer. She thought about years alone, about dark homes and forests and a future that was moving too fast for her to understand alone. She thought about the choices that had led her here. The decisions. Anna thought about everything that was engrained into being a part of her.

And she answered.

"...Talk to him first. Ask him, really ask him, make sure he wants this. Make sure he knows what he's asking for. And make sure he knows he isn't getting the Anna he used to know, alright? Because I'm not her and I can't be her."

Jack was already halfway to her by the time she finished talking, and slammed into her side with a loud whoop of victory. He wrapped her in a too-tight hug and mushed the sides of their faces together.

"Yes! I'll go now! Stay here, stay in this town, okay? I'll be back tomorrow to get you!" Jack stood then as Anna recovered from the hug, and she called after him as he took off,

"Only if he agrees!"

She didn't know if Jack heard her, or if she wanted him to hear her. She sighed and fell limply backwards into the snow, letting it chill the shaved underside of her hair, blowing her breath up above her. Her fingers found the cold of the snow, her chest tight with anxiety. It all hit her at once what she had just agreed to.

Jack made a convincing case. But it hadn't just been that to push Anna over the edge. Because as he spoke she thought about her future, something she'd never considered before a week ago, after she ran. She had sworn this time would be different. She had sworn this time she would be stronger. That this time she would make different choices, and she would be better at things, and she would make herself better.

She had never considered seeing him again as part of that. But wasn't that a massive part of her existance? He had played the best and worst part possible, he was the catalyst for what could have been wonderful and what was terrible. Really, it wasn't so much him in the bad as her, but at the same time...she didn't think she could do this. She didn't think she could look him in the eye after all the awful things she had done to him and explain what more she had done in her time away. She couldn't bear that shame, not if he was the same North.

She couldn't bear to see his face when she wasn't the little girl he loved like a daughter. When she was older and meaner and harder and terrified. She didn't want to see him hate her. But now she had to, she had made that promise, and all she had to do was hope he declined, hope that Jack Frost had been wrong.

When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, the snow had receeded around her in a perfect, stagnant circle.


	4. Strangers on an Overlook

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

"Jack, I don't think this is a good idea!"Tooth muttered behind Jack as he reached for the handle of North's office. He turned to his fellow Guardians, all of whom stood there and watched him with varying levels of trepidation, and smiled.

"Trust me, okay? This is gonna make him better, I promise." He whispered back, and then swept forward, opening the door and entering in one motion. Inside the office, North had been working on sculpting something small out of ice, but paused when Jack walked in. Suprised, he slowly set down the piece and greeted Jack with a bit less enthusiasm than normal.

"Oh, Jack! Es nice to see you, has been-"

"A week, I know, but guess what?"Jack interrupted excitedly, almost jumping on the carpet floor beneath him, hands gripping the staff and smile wide, eyes lit up. North, who always loved seeing Jack so excited about things, gave the first smile in awhile and held open his arms, asking,

"Am not good at guessing games! Tell, tell!"

"I got Anastasia to agree to see you!"

North's arms dropped slowly, his smile fading to a look of shock. He couldn't comprehend what Jack was saying for the longest time, and in that time of silence Jack began to feel a knot of worry in his chest. He had done this to make North feel better, to make his friend happy again. But now, seeing the sudden reaction of shock and not of excitement and thankfulness...Jack was afraid that Tooth was right. That maybe this wasn't the best idea.

"You did?"He asked, astounded and quiet. Relentlessly, Jack kept smiling and nodded.

"Yeah! I mean, it definitly took awhile, and she's still a little shaky on the idea so she made me come back here and ask you. To make sure this is what you really want, you know?" North blinked, his mouth partially open and eyes wide and gazing at Jack in a different kind of wonder, a wonder of fear and trepidation and excitement all mixed up together. Jack kept going, not letting North get in a word, begging that he would say yes, too.

"I think she's scared. I mean, she's spent so much time on her own that she convinced herself you didn't want to see her. Which I told her wasn't true, but she isn't going to take my word for it. Which is why you should see her and set her straight, right? You guys haven't seen each other in forever, so she's obviously different, but I thought she was pretty cool and-"

"She said yes?" North cut off Jack, and Jack paused, swallowing.

"Yeah. She did, if you do." He explained quietly, internally begging. North released a breath, blinking again, looking astounded.

"It's been so long, I assumed..."He paused again, then resolved himself and looked back at Jack. And with an immense wave of relief, Jack saw a small smile of hope appear on North's face. "Then yes, of course I would like to see her again. We can all meet her! It will be like old friend reunion, no?"

"Yes! Definitly yes!"Jack exclaimed, back to hopping and already making his way back to the door, one hand blindly searching for the handle while he beamed at a still-nervous North. "It's gonna be awesome! I spent a week with her, she's so cool, you'll love her! Well, you already do, but you know what I mean! Okay, I'll go get her! Move Bunny!"

"Oi!"

And just like that, Jack swept out of the Workshop in a rush of cold air and excitement, leaving behind ruffled Guardians. Bunny huffed, smoothing himself down and sending a half-hearted glare at where Jack had gone. Tooth and Sandy went into the room, encouraging North that they were all excited to see her. But Bunny stood in the hall, and he looked at a window that showed a light snowfall. He wasn't excited like the others. He wasn't enthusiastic.

In fact, Bunny was hoping that Jack would fail. It wasn't anything against him, or North, but the girl in question. He imagined her coming back, terrible as he knew she had to be, and breaking North's heart again. Of all the people that Bunny would protect, it was North. North, who had been the first person Bunny had met after becoming a Guardian. The first person who explained to him what that meant, who let him know he wasn't the sole entity on this planet that would live forever. They formed a rivalry, playful as it was, that kept Bunny entertained, that kept him loving what he did.

He could remember when North told them that story and the pain in his eyes. He could remember a resolution that if he ever saw Anastasia, under any circumstances, he would tell her what she'd done to North, the awful things she had done to the kindest, most infuriating man Bunny had ever known. And he wouldn't let her within a hundred feet of his friend. And now Jack was ushering her in on some red carpet, letting her speak to North again?

From what he picked up about her, from what Jack had said, she was exactly the kind of person Bunny assumed she was. And he couldn't do anything to stop this, looking into the room and seeing the hope on North's face that made Bunny want to bar that girl from ever coming here. Because Bunny knew it wouldn't end well. He knew his friend was going to get hurt. Not just North either, he thought, but if Jack thought this girl was his friend, she'd hurt him, too.

He had to fight to keep himself calm, to keep his fur down and look supportive. But, as they waited, one of his hands kept straying to a boomerang, waiting and watching.

_-Somewhere in Canada-_

Anna stood and looked at Jack, both on the top of a mountain and standing ankle-deep in snow. Shivering, Anna was almost positive that, had she not been made immortal centuries ago, she would have died from hypothermia up here. Her hands were crammed into her pockets and her eyes focused on a seemingly comftorble Jack Frost, as if this were room-temperature for him.

"You promised, remember?" He reminded her, and Anna had the sensation of this mountain laying on her chest, fear chilling her spine and a sick kind of feeling in her gut. He had said yes. That was a good sign, right? It had to be...or it could be terrible. He could have agreed to tell her off, to shame her, to tell her everything she had done wrong, to let out a centuries-old anger. Her nails dug into the inside of her pockets, pressing against her thighs.

"Yeah, Jack, I know..."She let out a puff of nervous breath, "...He really wants to see me? He isn't just doing this to...you know, be angry?" Jack stepped forward and put a hand on her upper arm, grinning the kind of smile that she hadn't seen in awhile, the kind of smile that made you feel happier.

"He isn't angry, trust me. He may seem a bit frazzled, but he wants to see you really, really bad. And I know you want to see him, too."

"What makes you think that?"Anna asked defensively, Jack cocking an eyebrow.

"Really? I found you in Canada, how much closer to the North Pole can you get?"

"..."

"..."

"Maybe I like Canadian bacon?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Let's go!" Jack reached out and grabbed her arm, Anna protesting as he laughed and, without a second thought, swept them up into the air. His hand tightened on her arm, Anna letting out a scream as the ground left her feet and she hung in mid-air, eyes wide as she watched the icy white tundra pass rapidly below her. Jack shifted his grip to her hand, her heart pounding in her ears as she expected to fall any second.

"Hey, c'mon, this is the best part!"He exclaimed, and had she been able to form words at this dizzying height, forgetting that she was immortal and therefore in no real danger, she would have told him to stick it somewhere. But there was a bright side to it all, being that with the fear of falling pounding in her brain, all other fears dulled to quiet ticks in the back of her mind. It was there, flowing through her heart and veins, but for the time being, for the few hours she hung suspended in the air with a chortling Guardian of Fun, it seemed diluted.

In fact, she didn't really feel it come back full-force until Jack landed them in front of a building like that of a child's dream. Panting, shaken, Anna craned her head up to take it all in. The building was massive, all reds and golds, intricate symbols and designs painted on almost every available surface. Spires arched and windows towered, the smell of pepermint and sawdust filtering out into the icy air. The building itself was as immaculate as the mountain it was built into, and the cavernous mountain rang that surrounded it. Isolated beauty, and she had never seen anything like it.

No one but North would think up a location or construction such as this. And it was beautiful and terrifying all at once. Beautiful because of the magnificence of it. Terrifying because it was North. She could see it, almost hear him making the suggestion of the mountains and what shades of red to color what. She could see him hand-making the windows, shouting excitedly when it was all done. The entire place seemed to have him in it, one massive construction looking down on her with every inch of it embeded with North. It was intimidating, and all at once she felt like she couldn't do this.

Her heartbeat was painful, her hands were shaking, and she couldn't seem to swallow or breathe in correctly. She was stunned in terror.

"Hey,"Jack's voice came through the fog, his hand gently on her arm now, "c'mon, it's gonna be fine, trust me."

"Jack, I don't even know you."She managed out.

"You're here though, aren't you?"He reasoned right back, and Anna blinked at him. He looked so confident, and she was trying her hardest to find a shred of treachery in him, to tell herself he was lying and tricking her. But she could not find any reason to not trust Jack. And so, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, reminding herself why she had agreed to this in the first place. This was part of her new start. Good or bad outcome, she did have to do this.

And when she opened her eyes, she nodded.

"Alright, Snowflake, let's do this."

When the two door were shoved open, the outside of the Workshop was quickly washed from Anna's mind. She wasn't even aware of stepping inside, of the doors shutting solidly shut behind her, because now she stood amist a chaos of spectacular levels. Everything was warm, smelling like cinnamon and peppermint, and nothing seemed to be still but the walls.

All before her, a flurry of activity swept over the toy-strewn floor. Yetis, large and furry and in various colors, moved around quickly or stood solitary, all making or painting various trinkets. Their large hands moved deftly, eyes narrowed and shouting gibberish to the others. Anna stared wide-eyed at the toys, at everything that propelled itself through the air or rolled across the floors, that lay in beautiful matte colors or shimmered like a Christmas tree.

Beautiful things were moving and floating and glowing and tinkering, sounds of gears winding and fires roaring and hammers smashing and yetis yelling, everything pushed together into one beautiful cacophany of noise. She even notices elves skittering about around the yetis' feet, making the larger beasts grunt and shout in irritation. She felt her breath catch in her throat as she stood in complete wonder at everything she was seeing.

Everything North had ever wanted, it was here. Everything he'd ever spoken about glamorously, all his grand plans and ideas for bringing joy to children. The stories he would tell of his grand schemes, of the yetis that she hadn't even believed existed, everything was here. It was physically here, moving and glowing before her in a brilliant display of beauty, of a captured childhood. She almost couldn't believe for a moment that she'd missed all of this.

"Pretty cool, huh?"Jack asked quietly, smiling all the way. Anna sucked in a breath and nodded, not taking her eyes off everything, feeling like she'd never be able to see everything that was going on before her.

"Yeah...I can't believe North did all of this."She whispered mainly to herself, but Jack chuckled anyway and gently tapped her shoulder, nodding to a staircase on the other end of the room that led up the curved wall and to an overlook. But what really stopped her ten steps in was that, once she managed to get through the first wave of chaos, something equally enormous presented itself.

"What the hell is that?"She muttered, tilting her head and craning her neck all the way up. Because, right in the center of the mad house, sat an enormous replica of the Globe. On it were tiny symbols that she vaguely remembered in books North would bring her, a language that only existed before she'd become what she was today. And where there were continents, on all landmasses, sat thousands of millions of little flickering lights. It looked like a massive family of fireflies had made their home in areas of the Globe.

"Huh? Oh! That's the Globe, cool right? But I'll let North explain it to you, c'mon!" Jack was insistent, pulling her and speaking fast. She barely had time to glimps around the Workshop, to try anything to distract herself from what was about to happen. Up a dozen-or-so stairs, and suddenly they seemed to be in a separate world.

Below them were the sounds and the smells wafting up to meet them, but where they stood it seemed almost peaceful. The tiled floor was gorgeous, with a mosaic 'G' in the center near the front railing. Behind her was an ornate fireplace, and to the sides more hallways that led to more doors. It was here that she stood and balled her hands into fists in her pockets, her chest begining to tighten again.

"Jack."She said quickly, as if reaching out to him would get her out of this. Honestly, she didn't want out of it. Somewhere inside of her, she had been waiting for this to happen for a very long time. But the was a smaller but louder part of her that was begging for her to run. She was looking at the Globe, at all the little lights.

"Hey, it's gonna be fine, remember? I promised. I'm gonna go get him now, okay? Just wait here, no leaving!" He assured her, holding his hand out in a 'stay' gesture as he made his way into the hall to her right. Alone now in the massive building, Anna felt herself break out into a cold sweat. She turned to the other hallway, saw doors and lifts, saw all the craftsmanship that North was known for.

Part of her warmed when she saw the little figurine of a matryoshka doll carved almost imperceptibly into a wooden beam. It was the smallest of the set, looking like an infant with large eyes. She could recall that set he had, remember the day he'd made them and how she'd laughed at his descriptions of himself. Just that little image cast a shadow of a memory over her, for once a good memory. And for that one moment, she thought she might be able to do this. She was smiling and she felt strong, her breath coming in hard but steady, her hands clammy but loosening. She was confident in that one moment, the sounds of the Workshop drifting up around her.

"...Anastasia?"

And all at once, that confidence was gone.

A chill ran down her spine and her heart gave a jolt, almost not daring to turn around. Because that voice...that voice was so much older, and a bit rougher, but it was without a shadow of a doubt _North_. The fear pounded in her head, a tingling on the back of her neck, knowing he was there. Behind her. So close after so long... And with a last-minute resolve, Anna turned around to look at him.

He was just as she remembered him that night. Larger, bear now entirely white and going down to his chest, wrinkles on his face. And it was him.

They stood there in silence, wide-eyed, neither knowing exactly what to say to the other. If they had any doubts that the other was a stranger before, at least outwardly, there were none now. Anna was nothing of the picture of innocence she had once been. North could almost feel his mouth fall partially open, eyebrows rising, taking in the girl before him. Still so young, still so small.

Her hair was shaved underneath, the rest in a tiny ponytail. Her face was a bit more mature, but not by much. Her clothing was no longer comprised of a heavy overcoat, but jeans, a tanktop, and a plaid and grey hoodie. She was looking at him with just the same shock that he felt he had...but he felt no anxiety at her having changed. Because yes, at first he saw her physical appearence having drastically altered, but her eyes were the same.

Two bluebird-egg eyes, and they were still so scared. That was one thing he remembered. It had been countless centuries, and she was so much older now than she had been before...but she was still scared. Which meant to him that not all of her could have been lost. And with a wave of relief, he realized that meant that inside of her, somewhere, his Anastasia was still there.

But Anna was having a far less wonderful time. Because North did still look like North, and that horrified her. He was still pure and there was even a twinkle of his old mischief in those light blue eyes, even in his stunned face. He was still the wonderful person she'd hurt. She couldn't feel her chest, and so it was North who spoke first, again.

"Anastasia, it is really you?" He asked in that thick Russian accent. She managed to swallow past a lump in her throat and nod, still in awe that he was here.

"...Yeah,"She managed out on a breath, "it's me...kind of."

She was waiting for it. Waiting for his face to turn to one of anger and spite and hatred. She was waiting for the accousting words and the venomous tongue and to be told of everything she did. She waited for the brunt of a centuries-old mistake to finally catch up to her. She waited for it, bracing herself.

Bracing herself for something that never came.

North's face broke into a 100-watt smile, his eyes crinkling and shimmering, his arms flying open wide, and for a moment she thought he would cry.

"_Anastasia._" He breathed reverently, and she was stunned now for another reason, her eyes wide and feet glued to her spot though he walked towards her. "Has been so long...I thought..." He paused when he saw the fear in her eyes, not taking another step forward and slowly lowering his arms, but the sweet and wonderous smile never leaving his face. "I thought I would never see you again."

She had to think of something to say, but it was so difficult when all that she'd prepared was a defense, and a weak one at that. She expected an offensive. Not...not this. This was affection. This was North. This was love and relief and acceptance and joy. The old Anna felt and gave all of those on a daily basis. But who she was now, this Anna hadn't ever experianced any of those. And so she barely knew how to react, though her mind screamed at her not to mess this up. That maybe this was a second chance.

And so, with her mind screaming at her to do something, that he wasn't angry, suddenly recognizing this face, Anna did the only thing that she knew how to do in situations like these. She took a quick breath, and said in an unsteady voice,

"...I still hate 'Anastasia'."

And like that, just like that, the dam broke.

North threw back his head and bellowed out a laugh that almost shook the building, hands supporting his rotund stomach and his face wrinkling, defining the features that crinkled when he laughed. She was cautious when she let out a breath, when she felt her muscles relax. This was happening, she told herself. This was happening, and nothing back was coming. This was going good. He doesn't hate you. Everything, for right now, is okay.

She repeated that mantra in her head until she could force herself to believe it, even if just a little, even if all it did was push the negative voice into the back of her head.

"Ah, I miss you so, Anna."North mused as he calmed down, eyes smiling.

"It's been a long time."She stated, and North gave a smile that let her know that he knew what she meant. That she meant 'I miss you too' and 'It was way too long' and 'I'm sorry'. Five words and he knew all the thousands of sentences she wanted to say, knowing she'd come to speak them in time. And it astounded her that, after all this time, he still knew her so well.

He gestured to the chaos going on separate from them, beaming with pride as he walked to the railing. She followed slowly, hands still in her pockets, still braced for something, anything.

"You like, yes? Took many years, but it es home now. All the toys given under trees that brighten children's hearts, all I make here! Well, yetis make." He laughed, "But I make ideas!"

"Yeah,"Anna couldn't help but smile at everything pulsing and glowing and building down below, "but, you know, I always thought the elves made toys. At least, that's what kids think."

"Ha! Yes, I have no idea how rumor was started. Elves, they are...unique."North explained, just as two elves electrocuted themselves by holding one end of a wire and throwing water on themselves. Anna shook her head and breathed out, too caugth up again with everything to know what she was saying until she said it.

"I can't believe you actually did it. I wish I'd been there." She cut herself off quickly, but not before North heard her. Not daring to look his way, she cleared her throat and looked down at her boots, seeing more working yetis down below. It wasn't quiet for long, and when he spoke North sounded...understanding.

"Es much we have to talk about, yes? But not now, not until you are ready. Now is a time for celebration, no? A reunion?"He reasoned, and a light feeling filled up in her chest. North was still a better person than she'd ever be. And he wasn't making her explain herself, even though he had every right to. Sometimes his pure heart was disarming.

Needing something, anything, to keep that fleetingly good moment alive, Anna looked up and nodded forward, to the Globe that had caught her eye earlier.

"What's that for?"She asked, and suddenly North perked up. He pointed to it and drew one finger across its image, saying excitedly,

"Es Globe! You see all the little lights?"

"Yeah."

"Each light is child who still believes. In us, in our work, in the hope and wonder we spread. Even when one goes out, look! There is always child who is discovering their belief. Beautiful, no?"

"Yes."She agreed, blinking in amazement at the little flickering lights. Each one was a child who believed, a way to keep track of how well they took care of children.

And then a thought struck her.

Ice slid down her gut and she tried to hide it on her face, but now she was realizing why the Globe itself was so stunning to her. Because she'd seen it before. Not this one, but an almost identical one. One without color or markings. A hollow Globe. A centerless Earth.

"You still wear." North's observation pulled her from her mind, and she looked up at him curiously. He was motioning to his own neck, and when she reached up to hers she realized exactly what he meant. Her fingers felt over the old, thin, white cloth tied around her neck, her only safetly blanket from back then, and let out a breath. The fabric was smooth under her fingers, and she nodded.

"Yeah, I guess...after what happened, you know, it was the only thing I kept. It meant a lot. It still does." North smiled warmly, relieving her, and nodded.

"Ah, yes. You even lost accent! Sound so sophisticated now, ha!" He teased, and for the moment everything was wonderful. She smiled and almost laughed, her hand wrapped around the first gift he had given her, a trickle of hope seeping through the cracks in her head.

And then, because the moment had to end, Jack came bounding in with the other Guardians behind him, everyone looking both panicked and curious. Their eyes were wide at North, and sideways they flickered to her, full of suspicion and curiosity. But it was Jack who spoke first, his breath thin and voice urgent, panting so hard he could only get out a few, chilling words.

_Nightmares. Playground. Kids._


	5. Reprise of a Beautiful Moment

_-Sorry this uploaded so late, I had most of this chapter done on Sunday and it got deleted by accident. Don't blame me, blame Wattpad and me. Enjoy-_

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

It was as if a bomb had dropped, and everyone began scattering around in a panic. The Guardians who had just had a faint regard of Anna were now preoccupied, all clustering around and pulling weapons out, preparing themselves. Anna was caught in the midst of it, heart stopped and trying to catch a look to Jack to ask him a question, but he was recovering from what looked like a long run over here.

"Nightmares? Near children? Where, Jack, where?!"North urged, grabing Jack by his shoulder and shaking. Jack heaved in a breath and managed out a location that Anna didn't hear, because she was still stuck on his words. Her chest was tight and her spine was tingling, her hands sweating and breath coming in too thin. Of course.

Of course this would happen when she thought things were right. Of course she couldn't have one simple moment of peace. Not on her own, and certainly not with North. Not after all that she'd done, and honestly she didn't feel that any of this was unjustified. But she couldn't go into this fight.

"North, I should really go-"

"Nonesense! You can see that I am not so old, afterall, haha! I am still Nicholas St. North!"He roared over her, reaching into his jacket in search of something, one hand brandishing a familiar-looking sabre. She caught it out of the corner of her eye, and for a moment remembered a time when him having those meant fun, meant adventure.

She wasn't sure what it meant now.

Panic took over and Anna's mind ran through the scenarios about to play out: They fought nightmares, she couldn't use her powers, someone got hurt. She did use her powers, something worse happens. They find the nightmares...and someone else. And suddenly Anna would have to explain a lot more than she let on. She wasn't ready for that yet, if ever.

"North, really, I can't use-"

"Poshli!"North exclaimed in his thick accent, shaking an ornate snowglobe and tossing it. The orniment exploded in mid-air, producing a portal like the one Anna had seen that faithful night. It swirrled in blinding colors, and North had her arm in a vice-grip before she could speak, panic ringing alarms in her head. Alarms that North apparently could not hear as he dragged her, the others following close, through the portal.

She was blinded a moment, brilliant flashes of white and blue and silver coating her vision. She didn't feel ground beneath her feet, more so she was caught in a mid-step and unable to move the rest of her body. No sight, no movement, the only sound being a gentle tinkling and, after a moment, the sound of popping streetlights. She knew that sound like an old lullabye, and it struck a fear into her heart.

It was only a suspended second in time that they passed through that portal, but she took all of that second and tried to remember something taught to her a long time ago. A way to breathe through fear. It had been awhile, maybe too long to remember to do it right, but as she sucked in air the edge of fear was taken off. And just in time, too, as no sooner had she exhaled did her feet throw her forward onto a dark, wet road and everything bright receeded in the blink of an eye.

Spots faded slowly in her vision, and she was greeted by the sight of a nighttime town after rain. North stood next to her on the rain-slicked road, the air clear and homes with all but some of their lights off. Those were the only sources of light on the scene, all the streetlights popped out and even a thick coating of clouds blocking out the moon. Maybe Anna was grateful for that last one. She did one reunion at a time.

"Everyone ready..."North muttered, an edge of excitement creeping into his tone, Anna's heart pounding past the limits of her breathing excercises. She looked to her sides, seeing Jack and North beside her, the other Guardians lining up. She still felt a few glances cast her way, and her skin crawled with it. She wanted to meet North, to talk to him, to explain so many things to him...but she couldn't if she also had to know these people. People who didn't know her, people she didn't want to get to know. People who looked at her all the way up until the first pair of coal-red eyes lit up the night.

A cold shock went through her, her entire body screaming at her to run, wondering why she wasn't. Hadn't she done the same thing just over a week ago? Hadn't she planned on doing that for the rest of the time she was alive, however long that may be? Shouldn't she have just gone? She was good at running, maybe the only thing she was good at, and there was no chance the others would catch her.

Except she didn't run. And in that moment, she would never know why.

The red eyes multiplied, outlines of nightmares made of pure black sand began to slowly pull away from the shadows, heads down and eyes narrowed, snouts puffing out arcid black smoke. The air was thin, and already Anna's breath wasn't coming in exactly right.

"North, I can't..."Anna tried to whisper, but he didn't hear her, instead getting into a fighting stance and shouting at the top of his lungs, so loud that Anna jumped and was surprised he didn't wake up the entire neighborhood,

"Guardians! Es time to fight!"

A heavy wind almost blew her off her feet as every single Guardian flew into action. They were blurs past her, Anna's legs frozen stiff and her palms sweating, a panic rising up in her chest that told her she couldn't fight. She couldn't really. She couldn't use her powers, she refused to, and there was no way she could fight these things any other way. So Anna stood, watching, as the Guardians charged head-first into oncoming dozens of raging nightmares.

In her spectator's stance, eyes wide and heart pounding in her ears, Anna could only see people fighting. She was now officially standing in the center of a battle she had only ever been told about. Of course this was small, but it was the small battles that she was given the most detail about, normally littered with curses and frustrated sighs. Battles like this, Guardian verses fear. And she knew all of them from descriptions she'd been given.

North, of course, she knew. But then there was the Easter Bunny, E. Aster Bunnymund, a large, blue-furred Pooka warrior, throwing boomerangs like it was no one's business. A flash of green flew through lines and lines of nightmares, shattering them to clouds of black dust. That was Toothiana, the Tooth Fairy in beautiful, glossy green plumage and wax-paper wings. Jack, then, as well. And near him, a tiny man glowing golden hues, no taller and two, maybe three feet, and manipulating a cloud of golden dream sand into various weapons. The Sandman, the most infamous of the Guardians.

She had been told many things about them, some true and some exaggerated. But what she knew then was that they were a fighting group, a worthy opponent. They fought with a vigor, with a strange camraderie with one another. They were warriors fighting to the best of their ability, and as she watched, not one of them every backed down. And then Anna realized something, hitting her hard and sudden: She did not belong with them.

Not just with them. Here, right now, in this battle. Back at the Workshop. She didn't belong, she didn't deserve to stand where they stood. Anna realized with a horrifying clarity that she no longer belonged beside North. She didn't deserve the kindness that she once did. Because she wasn't that person anymore, because now she was this coward that couldn't fight, that wouldn't fight. She wasn't worthy of anything anymore.

"Anna!" North's cry broke her from her thoughts, just before a black blurr crossed over her vision. She cried out and fell backwards, arms going up in front of her as a pain exploded across her back, nails instinctively reaching forward and clawing at whatever had just jumped on top of her. It was enough to make the nightmare whinney in pain, rearing up and giving Anna a view of what was about to happen.

It's coal-red eyes flamed in the night, massive hooves rearing back and preparing themselves to slam down onto her, black sand flaking off it's body, a cry echoing through the night. Anna lay there on the ground, paralyzed, thinking that she could do so much better than lay there pathetically...but she didn't. Anna looked up at the beast and wondered if a nightmare could really kill her. There had to be things that could, maybe this was one of them.

And in that moment, Anna would have been okay with it if she had died. She had seen North, she had spoken to him, she had freed herself from the clutches of another, and realized that she truly did not belong anywhere anymore. She had run from both sides of the spectrum, she was an outlier. That kind of closure before death was comforting. Now all she had to do was die. Heaven knows that would have simplified things.

But she didn't.

"HYAAA!"A deafening cry came from behind the nightmare, and two flashes of silver cut across two opposite directions of its neck. Without so much as a whinney, anything dying in its throat, the nightmare dissolved instantly into a pile of black sand on her lap. Anna, stunned for a moment, looked up to see North sliding the two hand-swords into his massive belt and reaching down for her. His hands gripped her shoulders and he lifted her as easy as if she were a feather, setting her on her feet.

"Anna! You are alright? Did it hurt you?"He asked, worry evident on his face. Anna blinked, the thought going through her mind that North had just saved her in the moment when she was ready to die. She hadn't thought her life out to this point, and was lost.

"Uhm...no, no I'm fine...thank you."She sounded amazed, and North gave her a surprised little smile. He brushed her off, the black sand falling to the ground slowly, as the others joined their sides.

"Hey! Anna, you should have-" Anna gave Jack a look that made him switch sentences on a dime, something she was greatly relieved and impressed by, "Didja see me? I had these five of them, and I kinda went like this, and boom! Gone!" He was reinacting his plight when North let out a loud laugh, clapping Anna on her shoulder.

"Was much fun, yes? I told you! We should do more often. Where do you live, I can take you home, or you can stay night. Oh! We could meet where you live for reunions every week! Tonight was just tip of iceberg, little Anastasia, would be much fun!" North listed off things almost too fast for Anna to process, catching the basic gist of it and opening her mouth to respond, no words coming out at first.

She paused, seeing the eyes of the Guardians now back on her. Some were curious, some trepidatious...and that was the first time Anna saw Aster's look. It caught her slightly off guard, trying not to look directly at him. But there he was, just behind North, with emerald eyes dark under a lowered black brow. His mouth was set in a frown. Everything about him, from tensed shoulders to the paws playing at the boomerang, from his hostile face to the fur slightly raised on his arms, everything read mistrust. Suspicion. Not that she could blame him, but it didn't do anything to help her, and she didn't have time to think of him.

In fact, she barely had time to think of her answer.

"I don't really live anywhere, North. Kinda bounce around, you know, and besides I-"

"You have no home?!"North exclaimed, a concern and shock on his face that made Anna tighten up, a guilt building inside of her.

"Well, not technically..." Not for just over a week. But she couldn't explain that to him, so she kept it simple. He shook his head and pointed to her sternly like a parent,

"Not acceptable! You will live with me in Workshop! I will not allow you to go off without home, no matter how long it has been!" At his words, everyone let out their own expression of shock. Toothiana and Sandy moved in, eyes wide and silent comments on their tongues, Jack almost rocketing into the air with excitement. And then Aster.

He stepped up, mouth open and eyes wide, looking like he was going to say something less-than-complimentary about her had North not stood right there. North, sensing their and her reactions, held up his hands and said,

"No, es final! I know es sudden, Anna, but will not push you. It will be nice way to reconveine, and we can look for another place for you. But I would feel much, much better if I knew you were safe. After all this time, I just..."And this time, it was North's turn to leave off on a sentence, his face still smiling but with a melancholy hint. And Anna felt horrible. She felt like she was going to be sick.

Live at the one place she decided she did not belong? How could she, when he knew almost nothing about her? How could she after all the things she had done? How could she, when she knew he wouldn't want anything to do with her if he knew the truth...

"Hey,"Jack's hand was on her shoulder, "c'mere. Guys, give us a second?"Jack asked, and no one protested as he steered her off a few yards, out of earshot. They were looking their way, and Tooth was saying something to North, but Anna turned to face Jack. She was grateful, no matter what he had to say, about what he had just done for her. The eyes were farther away now and she was just there with Jack. She could tell him more than she could them.

"What's up, you aren't happy about this?"He asked quietly, and Anna shook her head, rubbing the heels of her palms into her temples.

"No, I mean...I am. I am happy. I want this." She said it, a shiver running through her body at the absolute truth of it. Because she wanted to run, and she wanted to stay, and she wanted North to scream at her, and she wanted him to love her again. "But I don't deserve it."She looked him in the eye, and then back to the others. "I've done awful things, Jack. And I barely know North anymore, let alone the rest of you! It would be...uncomftorble."

"Uncomftorble, huh?"Jack asked, a glint in his eyes. Anna looked back at him and frowned, trying to read him.

"Yeah, of course it will be. Why?"She asked, and he leaned against the staff.

"Anna, is this awkward?"

"It will be if you keep looking at me like that."

"Seriously."

"No."

"Then,"He said, smiling and putting a hand on her shoulder, "how about I move in, too? I mean I kinda already live there, but permanently now. That way you have someone!" Anna kept Jack's gaze to make sure he wasn't joking with her or toying with his words.

"Jack, you barely know me."She tried.

"Oh, like it's a big sacrifice on my part, c'mon! It'll be fun, I promise...and if it isn't, you can leave. I won't judge, promise. Just give it time, and I'll be there for you. Pinki promise." He held up his pinki, and Anna was looking at him like he was insain. He didn't know her. North barely did. And they were just throwing themselves into this like it was no big deal. For all they knew, she was a serial killer...but they trusted her. They really, honestly did. And that was a horrible thing for her to take advantage of.

And yet she hooked onto his pinki like a lifeline. And Jack Frost smiled.

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

"You like it?"North asked behind her, but Anna could barely speak. She was shifting on her feet, looking around at everything in the small room. A beautiful bed with thick, red blankets. Wallpaper adorned with gorgeous and intricate gold details. A soft carpet, a beautiful dresser, a huge window with heavy green curtains pulled over it. The room itself smelt like peppermint and chocolate and velvet, and it had a warm kind of glow about it from the tiny lamp on the bedside table.

It was a beautiful room. And she remembered it.

"It's..."

"It was inspired by your room back...well, back then. I built many rooms here, with much inspiration for all of them, but this one," She turned to look at him and was struck by his warm smile, reaching his twinkling eyes, "this one es special."

Anna could feel something warm and tight in her chest, and she tried everything to get through the haze caused by time. North had shown her this room, her room, the one that looked almost every bit the same as her room back in the Russian wilderness centuries ago. Here she stood with him as if centuries hadn't passed. Here they stood together, the only thing changed being the color of North's hair and everything about Anna. It was like a before and after picture.

And for just a moment, Anna wanted to believe that this was true. That they were back to this, that this could still happen. That there was no reason for this not to be her re-start. And while a voice in her head kept saying that this was impossible, that something terrible was going to ruin this, Anna let herself melt a little. Maybe this was okay. Maybe the voice was wrong. If for just this once, then just this once.

And she said all that she could think of.

"Thank you."

It was almost as if North understood everything that this 'thank you' stood for. His hand rested heavily on her shoulder and he chuckled.

"Es nothing. I am just glad you got the chance to see it." He looked at the room and beamed, "Es funny, I always thought of this day, Anna. I thought that somehow, someway, you would find your way back here. I just never thought..."He paused, and a fear creeped back into Anna's gut. Here it was. Here, the accusation she'd been waiting for, the hate that would boil down into an argument. She would tell him things, tell him everything, and he would throw her out. At least she'd gotten the chance to see the room...

"...I never thought you would have such strange hair."

His hand rubbed at her undercut and she almost laughed a she ducked and swatted his hand away.

"Hey!"She exclaimed, half-stunned that this was his only qualm. It couldn't be, she thought, he was just holding out for another time. Then again, so wasn't she. She looked at him and they shared their first smile in centuries, gentle and cautious, both knowing the other was hiding things. And Anna knew this would all end some day soon, but for the moment, for the night, everthing was fine again.

"Guardians will want to see you tomorrow, and you can tell us all of your travels over these centuries. You will like them, they are wonderful group, and they will surely love you." Anna thought back to Aster, his glare, his piercing conviction, and gave a half-hearted smile.

"I didn't expect you to have so many people around you..."She paused, as North leaned to leave, looking back at her with expectant eyes. Crawling in her gut was that sense of guilt she wanted to rid herself of, and she shoved her hands into her pockets as she said quietly and awkwardly, "It all just caught me off guard, all of this so sudden. I mean..." And there was so much more she wanted to say then. But it would have to wait, she knew. So she settled with an apology. "I'm sorry if I seemed like I didn't want to be here. I do."

_I missed you_ went unsaid.

North gave her another smile that took her back to better times, and then waved at her.

"Get sleep now, all is forgiven. Tomorrow es new day, better day!" He left and gently closed the door behind him, leaving Anna in semi-darkness. The silence lasted for less than a beat.

"My, my, he _is_ good isn't he?"

Anna felt a striking fear shoot through her body, head to toe, as she jumped and almost cried out. When she turned she wished she had, almost stumbling back to the door. Her feet were planted and her gut was tight, eyes wide and pulse hammering in her head. The room was cold now, colder than it had been, and suddenly much, much darker. All she could make out was the silouhette of a thin, grey-skinned man with golden eyes.

The facad shattered around her as he stepped into the thin veil of light cast by the lamp, hands folded behind his back and smile cutting a thin line across his face. In his eyes was a bored kind of amusement, as if he were toying with something. He was. It was her.

"I must say, Anna, it took you longer to get here than I first expected." His quiet, elegant voice went through the space between them, him only stopping his stalking forward when Anna was almost against the door. Where once fear had been, though, was something much different. Because if Anna knew how to speak to anyone, if Anna had ever learned to behave around another person, it was this man.

"Pitch. You giant goddamned praying mantis. Why are you here?"She spat out quietly. She did not call for help. She didn't want to. This man and her had a different kind of way of doing things, they knew each other differently. And some people might say that this was an idiotic move, why not call the others and cut all ties? Why not sever herself completely?

The answer was simple. The answer had two parts. One: She was not afraid of Pitch Black.

"You're charming, really. Have I ever told you that?"He deadpanned cooly, but she saw agitation creep into his eyes. The man loomed over her, head tilted slightly one way, and a worry was cramping in her stomach.

"Get out."She spat. He quirked an eyebrow and leaned back a bit, lithe fingers lightly touching his chest in a feign hurt gesture.

"Oh my, really? Well, since you insisted so politetly..." It was as if the man fell through the floor, but Anna knew better. Nerves shot out all over her, tingling over her skin as she forced a half-hearted calm over herself. "...then again." His voice was right in her ear, and again she jumped, spinning to face him and holding a hand out in front of her.

The fingers trembled, but more so out of anger and worry than anything else. Anger that, after everything, he was here to remind her that she could never just move on. Worry that she would realize that, too. Pitch looked at her hand, her deadly hand, with a feiged interest. Then his eyes flickered up to hers, a deadly smile on his face, and he asked mockingly,

"What do you plan to do with that, dear? Kill me?"

"It's becoming a serious consideration." She mummbled, and toyingly he took her wrist gently in his fingers. She pulled her hand away and glared, holding it behind her like a child. "Don't touch me. I swear, Pitch, this time-"

"Is different? Darling, if I had a dime for everytime you've said that, I could quite this whole 'fear harvesting' business."He cut her off, and she wanted to say something back but knew he was right. No other words would come, and so she took a step back from him. From the man that had caught her up in his world, in his promises, at the moment she was weakest. And even now his grip stayed strong.

This man that made her into something terrible.

"What do you want, Pitch?"She finally managed to ask, cursing the weakness in her voice. She was tired, that was all. Yes, that was all. He smiled as if this were the question he'd been waiting for, and folded his hands in front of him.

"What do I want? Well, dear, you've already done that for me haven't you?"He asked, and she paused.

"...Are you drunk?"

"Oh you insufferable-"He muttered, but regained his composure with a deep breath and a shake of his head. Then golden eyes pierced through the shadows right at her, and he smiled again. "So clever. And so closed off, dear. Not that it will hinder the Guardians, no. Those vigilantes will do anything it takes to get a person to like them. They'll let them into their world, they'll care for them, show them things..._tell them their secrets._"

In a horrifyng moment, Anna realized exactly why Pitch was here.

Here, and never with the nightmares.

Here now and not before.

Because he had been waiting.

Her eyes were wide and she felt her heart drop, brow furrowing and an anger creeping up inside of her. Pitch waited, smile growing, wanting her to say it. And she did, because even she herself couldn't believe how she hadn't seen this coming.

"You knew."She said. He shrugged lightly, but his face was showered in victory. "You knew,"She repeated, "and you let me. You want to get inside, you want me to be your goddamned spy?"

"Oh, yes I do. And you will be so wonderful at it, I can just see it now."Pitch whispered, walking around her, making her turn to face him. She clenched her fists, fighting to keep things under control, and Pitch saw it. He had always seen it. Of everyone left on this Earth, Pitch was the only person who always saw her straight through.

"No."She demanded, "No, I won't. Not this time. I have a life now, North wants me here now. I have a chance, and you don't. You're just the same man, and you're going to fail again, because there's no way I'm doing that. You don't own me anymore. You can't make me do-"

"Oh, my dear,"Pitch was suddenly inches from her, holding her neck in tight fingers, eyes burning holes into her, "I sincerely believe I can. You do remember that I am the only one that accepts you for what you do, yes? I've taken the monster you believe you are and turned it into something magnificent. You can't tell me that they will do the same for you. See, love, that's how I know you'll come back to me.

"One day, maybe soon, maybe not, they'll see what you are and, being Guardians, won't accept you. They'll cast you out into the cold, they'll tell you horrid things. You see the Guardians do something so terrible, so vile, that even I don't stoop to their level. They make you believe that you have a family." He let go of her face and held a palm in front of her, creating small figures like the Sandman did, but these were blacksand. Tiny figures of the Guardians and her.

He was quiet now, voice low and knowing that he had her. He had known her for centuries. There was no way Pitch wouldn't know exactly what to say, and this was how he had gotten her everytime.

"And when you slip up?"He drawled, and violently clasped his hand closed, making her jolt, the black sand trickling between his fingers, "They destroy you. They take it all from you, and leave you with nothing..." Anna felt her breathing stop, looking at his hand, trying to keep her own hands from shaking. Pitch leaned down so that they were eye-level, his hand ghosting across her face. "But you, my dear will have me. I will wait however long it takes for you to realize you don't belong with them. For you to realize that while you may despise me, while I may have turned you into something 'terrible', as you say...I am all that you have."

I blinked, and he was gone. The room was emtpy, and the light slowly seeped back to a normal volume. Pitch's voice was echoing in my head, and my trembling resolve and the voice in my head whispered the second reason that I was worried that night: Because Anna was constantly stuck in a grey area. She wanted to leave. She wanted to stay. And as pattern held it, she had only ever folded one way.

The door behind her flew open and she spun around, coming face-to-face with the last person she expected to see.

"Who're you talking to in here?" Aster demanded, and Anna tried to compose herself.

"Oh, uh...n-no one."She lied. Aster stood there a moment, and suddenly she found herself under that glare again. It was stronger now, no one around to stifle it. He looked at her in accusation, in conviction of a crime she had not yet committed. Brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, and Anna was looking up at a rabbit that did not trust her.

And it was cathardic to finally have someone who hated her as much as she did.

"I don't know why you're back here."He said, and paused so that Anna thought he was done. But he wasn't. "I've known North a good few centuries, sheila, and I remember what he said about you. Now I think we both know he sugarcoated it. You hurt him, bad, and I don't trust you within an inch of my life. There's somethin' not right about you." He stopped here for a moment, Anna standing and taking it all in. All the hits she knew she deserved.

"You're hidin' something, I know it. And don't think for a moment North isn't gonna figure it out, or I will. You aren't hurting him again. Him, Jack, or anyone." He seemed to be pausing, waiting for a reaction. When he didn't get one, he reiterated, "I'll be watching for when you slip, sheila. And when you do, I'll be there."

Anna spoke to him for the very first time.

"Good." Was all she said. He waited a moment longer, looking her up and down, then threw her one last scowl before turning away and slamming shut her door. She waited for the sound of his footsteps to finish thumping down the hall, and then collapsed her back against the door. Sliding down, Anna rested her head on her knees and laced her fingers through her hair tightly, pulling enough to cause little spikes of pain.

Everything had been perfect for a beautiful moment.


	6. Knowing Your Place

_-Four Centuries Ago-_

_ Stop it, stop it, stop it, _she begged in her own mind, hands clutching at her head and bones rattling under her skin. Around her, feet of snow melted, the grass beneath died and the dirt dried up. She could feel it, every bit of it, all those strings of life snapping, over-taught, just beyond her fingertips. She could feel the life leaving everything around her, as muted as someone flicking her in the chest, little sparks beyond her fingertips. It felt so small to be doing something so horrible.

She couldn't control it. She couldn't calm down, really, with her mind sliding to and fro with no solid base to land on. She couldn't control this, this dam that had just broken loose. Kneeling there on the patch of dead Earth, Anna thought that she would eventually die, too. This suffering was too much, this fear was too strong. And afterall, even if she could get this under control, she had nowhere to go back to.

She had run from the only home she had been given, a home in a person's heart. A place she no longer belonged.

"Well, we do seem to be in a predicament here."

Anna could recall that the first time she heard the voice, she thought it sounded sinister and plesent. Both, at the same time. And she could recall that it was the one thing that stopped all that death around her. It was that voice and that man, in the first moments that they would see each other, that Anna was able to focus on. And everything stopped, the little sparks of electricity, the snapping strings, everything.

"Ah, now see, that's much better. Although this snow is rather...inconveniant. I don't know how people live here."His accented voice carried no tones of hatred or disgust. And when Anna slid her hands from her hair and slowly looked up at him, she saw neither of those things in his golden eyes either. Just a curiosity, and an eccentric smirk. Then a hand, reaching out to her.

"...You aren't a good guy, are you?"Anna asked quietly, looking from the hand to him. He tilted his head and quirked a brow.

"Why do you say that, dear?"He mused.

"Because you look evil as shit."

"Well, that is my preferred aesthetic."

Anna looked at the hand again, still not sure if she should trust this man, still not knowing the role he would play in everything from that point on. This man would forever change her. All she had to do was take his hand.

"I don't bite, you know."He teased, almost pleasently. Anna cleared her throat and ran a hand through her hair, the other clutching at her stomach under the heavy jacket. She did not know that Pitch could read her fears, she would find that out later on. So she did not know how, in that moment, he knew exactly what to say.

"You don't have to be alone."

It was a promise that, in all that would happen over the next four centuries, Pitch Black would never break.

And she took his hand.

_-Present Day, Santoff Claussen-_

No one was around as Anna crept along the brightly-lit hallway, the sun reflecting harshly off the piles of white snow outside. She could hear faint noises, like the tinkering of early-rising yetis and the tinkling of bells on the tops of the elve's hats. But here, in this hall, no one. Which was a relief, as she'd spent the first thirty minutes of the day sitting in the room that brought back too many memories deciding about whether or not she would actually leave. In the end, she'd told herself that the only people who lived here were North and Jack. It seemed that the others were visitors.

She kept one hand on the wall, tracing ornate and thin carvings with her pointer finger. The entire night she'd looked over all of the incredible details in the room, and then stared out the window. Sleep had never come easy to her, and where she was now, after what happened last night, she wasn't going to rest anytime soon. It wasn't that she didn't feel safe, it was that she felt...uneasy. As if she didn't belong there, still, as if she didn't fit into the picture. So she stayed awake, waiting for it all to be a dream.

In the morning, when she was still there, Anna had never felt so lost.

She was thinking of what Pitch had said last night, about her and what her purpose here was. Somehow she always did what he needed. Somehow, no matter how far she got from him, Anna was never out of Pitch's reach. To be here even, right in North's home, she wasn't free from him. But she was fighting back, and to her that was at least something.

These were the thoughts she had as she reached the kitchen, Jack having given her a tour before she found her room yesterday, and pushed open the door.

"Ah! Anna! Did not expect you up so early, you used to sleep like potatoes in sack!"North exclaimed, albeit quietly, the moment Anna stepped into the massive room. She jumped a bit, not expecting to see anyone this early, the door slamming shut behind her before she could turn and run.

North looked at her expectantly, beaming and holding a mug the size of her face in his hand, steam coming off the top. In the silence, Anna pressed her hands to the door and leaned on it casually, heart hammering. She was searching for something to say, anything to say. Because deep inside of her, Anna did want to recouncil. She just didn't think she could. And so she nodded to the mug and said the only thing that came to mind,

"Hot coco?"

North's face lit up as if she'd just said the most wonderful thing.

"Of course! You remember how much I like?"He laughed at himself, and Anna forced a smile.

"Yeah...although it looks like you've been liking it a bit too much these days." She found that to come easy. Teasing, playful prodding, harmless jokes. These things she knew, those hadn't gotten lost in the years that had turned her into something else. North play-pouted and patted his stomach, which was considerably larger than the last time she'd seen it.

"Ah! This? Es water weight!"He defended, and this time her smile was real. "Maybe we both have changed, huh? But I am still dashing lad! Ouch!" He winched and placed a hand on his back as he attempted to move into a valiant pose, and Anna had to duck her head and bite her lip to keep from laughing. North, the eternal jokester. He gave Jack a run for his money.

"Come, Anna, es early morning and nice time to watch the yetis work. Time for small chit-chat, yes?"North asked, walking around a giant marble island in the center of the room, one arm out to guide her. Her stomach twisted, thinking that if this was really going to be her and North, then this wouldn't be small talk. Yet, with no way out, she turned and opened the door before North could lead her.

The overlook was only a few steps away, and still empty in the early-morning sunlight. Anna made her way to the railing, looking up at the Globe with a leftover sense of awe. With a little force, she pushed herself up so that she sat on the railing, feet swinging in the open air below, over the heads of a handful of yeti. North settled next to her at, what she noticed was, a respectful distance.

It was quiet, so quiet. It was the kind of quiet you could tell secrets in. And that, above all, terrified Anna.

"How are you liking so far? I know the Workshop es big and all, but es cozy. Maybe I can show you my study, it has many, many books. You still read, yes?"North asked casually, sipping the coco. This was easy so far. Baby steps.

"I haven't in a long time..." She didn't mention the fact that she had been in a different library. In this one, she'd read maybe a handful of books. And it wasn't that they weren't wonderful, it's that everything that Anna had ever been doing would have had to be explained with one secret. So she kept her answers in half-truths. "...but I'd like to see your study some time... And yeah, I like this place. I remember you used to tell me about making yourself a palace."

"And I did!"

"Yes, yes you certainly did. You did everything you ever said that you would."Anna mused, fingers toying with the white fabric on her neck. Now, amoung the beautiful toys that floated and bounced and buzzed and glistened, it seemed so prehistoric. And yet, of everything there, she couldn't think of anything she wanted more.

"And have you?"North asked, prompting Anna to give him a confused look. "Have you done all you wanted to do?" He explained, a tight sensation finding Anna's heart. And she swore, with that look that North gave her, the silence around them, the serenity of it all that made the moment with Pitch seem like a bad dream, Anna almost told him everything.

But in the end, she held her tongue. Bitterly, filling with self-hatred, Anna held her tongue.

She shook her head and breathed out, looking forward.

"...I can't even remember what it was I wanted to do."She admitted with a breathy exhale, hands falling from the fabric. North was quiet a moment, and then spoke softly, as if he too noticed how fragile this silence was.

"You remember what I used to call you? My little bluebird. Your eyes, you remember, looked just like perfect little bluebird eggs. They still do, huh? My perfect little bluebird, part of you is still in there, part of you that still wanted to fly and spread joy and love and life." Her hands laid on her lap, limp and for looking at. Which is exactly what she did instead of looking at North. Gently, she hook her head.

"I'm not so sure anymore, North. Stuff...stuff has happened." _Stuff has happened. Stuff like I helped the Nightmare King terrorize people. Stuff like I became one of the bad guys, and I didn't even feel bad about it. I just wanted a home and he gave me one. I tried to leave and I couldn't. I did terrible things. I brought fears to life. I did that. Stuff like that._

"Anna, no matter what has happened, whatever kept you from me, you are still my little bluebird."North said so sweetly that it almost killed her, and Anna felt herself beginning to slip, found the words so close to the tip of her tongue. She smoothed back hair into the small ponytail and let her hand fall limply back into her lap. She wanted him to know everything, she needed him to know. He could help her, or he would hate her, but she wouldn't have to carry it anymore. It would be gone.

She laughed a bitter laugh.

"Oh yeah? Well this little bluebird messed up, North."

"Messed up? Anna, speak to me...what happened to you?"

_I joined Pitch Black._

"Hey guys! What's up?"Jack's voice cut through the silence, his sentence paused by a yawn but enough to pull both North and Anna back into reality. The words receeded back down her throat and she swallowed them. North, likewise, beamed at Jack and seemed to drop the subject altogether.

"What is up? Ceiling!"North laughed at his own joke, Jack shaking his head and smiling sleepily at Anna.

"Hey, I talked the others into seeing Jamie and Sophie today. It's been weeks since I saw them last, I thought we should pay them a visit and introduce Anna."Jack pointed the staff at her. Jamie and Sophie. Children, she guessed. Children, other guardians, the wide-open. Oh, good.

"Uh-huh, Jack, um, exactly how impressionable are these kids?"

"Sounds like wonderful idea!"North exclaimed, raising his arms and sloshing coco onto the floor. He turned on his heel and began marching, motioning for the two of them to follow him. Anna jumped down, trying to say she couldn't, that this would be an awful idea, but no one seemed to hear her. Children, kids. God, how long had it been since she'd looked a child in the eye? After all she'd done to them?

Anna suddenly stopped her train of thought, blinking. No. No, this was good. This...this could be ok. Drastically, Anna began to think that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't turn out horrible. She had spent centuries hurting children, and look where that had gotten her...now, even if this was a baby step, even if she only said 'hi' to them, if she could come out of this with the children happy and in-tact...

...Maybe she could change.

Maybe.

"North, where are we going?"Jack asked as North led them through a hallway and into a wooden elevator of sorts. North laughed heartily and raised his hand, yetis nodding and running forward to pull open two massive, ornate doors.

Beyond, Anna heard the violent ringing of bells and the stomping of hooves.

"Anna, meet: The Sleigh!"

_-Four Centuries Ago-_

She wasn't afraid of the dark, so much as what was in it.

"They don't bite, dear. Not if you're with me."Pitch mused, trailing long grey fingers over the hide of the nightmare as he walked in front of her. Anna moved lightly, her hands holding each other near her stomach. Where he'd led her was cavernous, a massive dark cave full of staircases leading either nowhere or to a place that didn't make sense for the staircase to go. She had kept her distance at first, watching as the black-sand horse with the red eyes trotted beside Pitch, but now had to keep closer in fear of getting lost.

"I'm not afraid of them."She lied, clearing her throat to make her voice clearer, less shaky. His laugh rolled along behind him, echoing off walls smoothy.

"You don't have to lie to me. I am the Nightmare King, remember that." Yes, he'd introduced himself before he'd taken her here, and still she had followed. "I know everyone's fears as they happen. And yours, my dear, is of the things that creep and crawl in the dark. At least, for now it is. You'll get used to them soon, in time you'll see that they can be quite endrearing."

"I doubt that..."She muttered, and she swore she heard him chuckle again, but it was too quiet to make out. He led her down a staircase that led into a room that almost seemed to appear out of the shadows, massive with an arched ceiling and high walls. She stepped into it almost silently, feeling suddenly very small. The shadows had an organic kind of feel to them, clinging to the walls but ready to pounce. So she focused on the center of the room.

"What is that?"She whispered, blinking at the large figure in the center of the room. It took her a moment to match the figure to pictures she had seen in books, but in the middle of the room and supported on a black pedestal was a hollow figure of the Earth. The oceans were gone, leaving only land and beautiful, flickering lights. She walked up to it, mesmerized, running her finger tips along the cold, smooth metal surface.

"Ah, this,"Pitch explained next to her, hands folded behind his back and head raised high, "is my Globe, dear. You see those lights?" She nodded, seeing clusters of them all over, "Those are the precious little lights of all the children in the world who believe."

"Believe?"Anna asked, screwing up her face and blinking at the lights.

"Yes, believe in people who have yet to meet one another. Believe, my dear, in the Guardians. The ones who protect memories and joy and wonder. The ones who protect dreams. North was one, as you should know."Pitch explained with a bitter tone. And Anna did know. North had told her this, told her that the Man in the Moon had chosen him to be a Guardian.

"I was supposed to be one..."She said quietly, a pain twisting in her stomach, stilling her hand on the Globe. "...but I think the Man in the Moon made a mistake."

Anna wouldn't see it then, and Pitch would deny it to his grave. But the way she said the words, with such conviction, with a feeling that Pitch could recall, in that moment he looked at her with sadness. It washed away quickly, and the subject was dropped for another day, but it had been there. It was the first sign that Pitch would ignore.

"Why do you want me?"She asked, hand curling into a fist on the Globe.

"...You ran, am I correct? You ran because no one told you that you had this kind of power, you ran because you weren't told the whole truth, and were afraid that the ones you loved would cast you out for it. So you left first."

Anna said nothing to that, which gave Pitch his answer anyway.

"I won't lie to you and say that I don't have an alterior motive. I plan to cause destruction and fear and darkness. I am an awful, awful person. But I am not going to cast you out for what you have been gifted with."

Anna's hand bunched up the white fabric around her neck, an unexplainable sadness aching in her bones. All that she knew, all she had ever known, was gone now. She couldn't go back to it, all because of one little moment, all because she hadn't been told everything that she could do. Her life before was gone. North would never come looking for her, if he remembered her at all in a few centuries. She had realized all of this in the moments before Pitch had found her, thinking that she would be alone the rest of her life.

Only one of those things could change.

"...Promise?"

"I swear." Pitch said, with not even a shred of mockery or deceit in his voice. Because, of all the things he would say, he truly did mean that one. "Now that that is cleared from the air, what can I call you? I don't think 'dear' can be a permanent placeholder."

A strange, relaxing sensation spread through Anna's chest, as if this were normal conversation. Right then, the future looked survivable.

"Anastasia, but I hate that name. Just 'Anna' is fine."

"Anna it is, then." Pitch agreed, and that was exactly where the second part of Anna's life began.

_-Somewhere Over North America-_

Anna had stopped screaming and clawing at the handrail four hundred miles back. Now, she just sat plastered against the hardwood seat and begged that North wouldn't do a 'loopty loop' again. Jack, on the other hand, was having a spectacular time as he crouched on the back of the sleigh and whooped. North sat in front of them, the thick reigns of the reigndeer in his hands, head back and laughing at whatever it was that Jack was saying.

"Look!"Jack finally said after awhile, "There they are! Right in that clearing, North!"

"Ah-ha! I see them! Hold on tightly!"North exclaimed, and suddenly the entire sleigh jolted and began to take an almost completely ninety-degree nosedive. Anna then did scream, her fingers clutching bloodlessly to the seat as her stomach went up into her chest. Jack laughed uproarously from above her, swooping down and out of the sleigh, leaving her alone to her doom.

"North! We're going to-"

Just as they were about to slam into the ground, the sleigh jerked forward and evened out, bouncing four times in the thick blanket of snow and coming to a slow, easy halt, hidden by a layer of trees from the neighborhood.

"...Crash."She muttered, panting and face wind-burned, blinking and heart hammering.

"Nonesense! We are alright! I take it you liked?"North asked jokingly, turning to see her. She made a face at him and pushed herself up, shakily getting to her feet. North jumped out and reached his hand out to her, wanting to help her down, but she saw it and, for a quick moment, thought it was the hand of someone else. She faultered, blinking and seeing that, yes, this was North. This was safe.

She was safe.

She took his massive hand in hers, feeling the warmth and the callouses that hadn't left with age. It spread up her arm and through her body, that familiar kind of feeling. Wrapped around her like a blanket and eased out most of her stress. This was North. Maybe they were different people, but they were slowly finding what was the same.

When they were both out of the sleigh and began walking, Anna saw the two children she was supposed to meet today. One was a little girl with messily cut, blonde hair peeking out of a pink knit hat. She stumbled in the high snow, beaming at the Guardians around her and jumping at the sight of North. Near her, talking excitedly to Jack, was a boy in his early tweens with dark brown hair and bright brown eyes.

Anna walked a bit slower, and North followed suit.

"So..."She began, "Those are the kids?"

"Jamie es older brother to Sophie. Both are wonderful, they will love you very fast." North leaned down to her, whispering as they got closer, "Do not be afraid. They have no reason to dislike you." Anna felt a stab of pain and sucked in a breath, hands clenching in her pockets.

"What if they did?"

North didn't have time to ask her to elaborate, because they were too close now and the others were looking at them. Bunny, of course, narrowed his eyes and almost looked like he was going to pull Sophie back when she ran up and hugged North's leg. Sandy gave a shy little nod, which Anna awkwardly returned, and Tooth beamed a nervous smile, which Anna could not return.

"Oh, hey! Jamie,"Jack exclaimed, floating over to her and landing in the snow, putting a hand on her shoulder, "this is my new friend Anna." Jamie smiled, missing a tooth in front, and held out his little mitted hand.

"Hi! I'm Jamie, this is my little sister Sophie." Anna shook his hand as he nodded to the blonde-haired girl, who bounced up to Anna. She wanted to cringe away, seeing those big eyes so full of trust and love and innocence, her little smile so wide on her face. Damn, she was everything that Anna had helped destroy. She was a manifestation of guilt. And Anna couldn't get away from her.

"Pretty!"She exclaimed, waving. Anna, chuckling nervously, gave a tiny wave back. And that was it. Then Sophie hopped back to Bunny, who was still giving Anna a venomous, searching look, and that was that. Anna had survived. Standing straighter now, she let out a huge breath. That had been easy, she'd done it.

North gave her a gentle tap on the back and smiled down at her, blue eyes twinkling, and for a moment Anna thought she saw pride.

"They see you?"North mouthed, and Anna shrugged and nodded. Seeing her seemed to be inconsistent through the ages, but mostly she noticed that children saw her more often. Maybe because children were a tad bit more optimistic about life and death.

"So Anna, what can you do? I mean, you're like the Guardian's right? Do you have a cool power?"Jamie asked, sniffling in the cold. Anna stammered a minute, and then managed out,

"Um, well...nothing cool, like Jack, pun intended. But I can...put life back into things that don't have a whole lot left in them."

Jamie's eyes got wide as saucers and his mouth dropped open, Jack snickering and putting a hand over his mouth as they looked down on the dumbstruck child.

"That..._is so cool._"

"Hey! I don't have competition, do I?"Jack demanded playfully, Jamie almost jumping as he explained to Jack how awesome it was that Anna could actually bring something back from the brink of death.

"This means that all we know about science can be changed! I mean, for real, this is awesome!"Jamie was almost breathless, and Anna wanted to wrap him up in a huge embrace. Because for once, no one tap-danced around the subject of her powers. For once, someone spoke about them with extreme enthusiasm...the good half, at least. She was going to leave out the bad part.

Once they'd calmed Jamie down, Anna watched as they began to build snowmen. She even saw Bunny smile when Sophie tried to make one look like him. It was a nice smile, full of warmth and love, changing his face completely from what she usually saw. And that was fine, his constant vigilance of her, his increasing suspicion. She was okay with that, because it meant that someone would have her in check if she slipped up. It was okay.

"Anna?" She turned her head quickly, seeing Tooth landing next to her, smiling with her big lavendar eyes and flittering wings. Anna blinked, confused, and turned to face her.

"Oh, um...hi?" Toothiana held out a hand, the other nervously near her stomach, and said sweetly,

"We didn't get the chance to meet yesterday, what with all the commotion going on. My name is Toothiana." She was still smiling, and as far as Anna could see, the smile was genuine and her words weren't hiding anything. Slowly, Anna shook Tooth's hand and nodded.

"I'm Anna. But I guess you know that."She greeted back.

"Oh, yeah. North told us a lot about you, I'm just glad I get to meet you in person!" God, this woman was nice. Anna was a bit thrown by it, to be honest. With four centuries of Pitch Black as her only interaction, speaking to someone this relentlessly sweet was way out of her element.

"Oh, good...I'm glad he said nice things." Anna bit her tongue, but Tooth kept smiling.

"Of course he did! And I know he's happy you're back now. Do you think you'll be staying?"She asked, and when she saw Anna's face she immediately corrected herself, "Of course, you don't have to! We can find you a place, though. I mean, everyone needs a home, right?"

Anna nodded, scratching her undercut and looking out at the kids, desperately looking for another topic.

"So these kids...you see them a lot?"

"Yup! You see Jamie? A few years ago, when a man named Pitch Black attacked us, he took away all of our believers with fear and nightmares. But Jamie never faultered, not even once. He's the reason we're all here today. Pretty cool, huh?"

Anna had stopped listening before the last sentence. Her heart stopped, and she was looking at Jamie with wide eyes. Jamie. The last light. Oh god, yes she knew him. She remembered that fallout, she remembered hearing his name cursed through Pitch's mouth and she remembered the state Pitch had been in after that child had defeated him. That child and his friends. That child and his friends that Anna had almost helped destroy.

"Anna?"

"I-um-I'm gonna go for a walk. Thanks." She added in as she took a few steps back and began walking, blinking and muttering under her breath. "You thought it would be easy? You thought you could do this? Shit. Shit, shit, shit." She made it past the sleigh and into the treeline before she realized she was being followed. Her heart jumped and she spun around, only to see North holding his hands up, standing in front of the reindeer.

"North?"Anna asked, and he looked so concerned.

"Anna, is everything ok? You look terrified."He asked, one hand forward. She paused, looking him in the eye...and then slumped against a tree. She was looking at the man who had once been a swashbuckling, adventure-seeking, wonderful man that led her on adventures she could only dream about now. This man that practically adopted her and sheltered her and was the very reason she was alive. This wonderful, wonderful man. And all she could do was hurt him.

"North...why do you do this?"She asked breathlessly, shaking her head as the sounds of laughing children carried over to them. "Why did you take me back in after what I did to you?"

North's expression softened, but he didn't smile. He just looked sad, and serious. And finally, finally, they were talking about the things they needed to discuss. Because Anna, in this moment of seeing the children who had just barely stopped what she had caused, surrounded by those who were, mostly, willing to accept her into their life, and she couldn't begin to tell them all the reasons they should hate her.

"Because, Anna, you deserve to have a home. And I still love you, my little babushka."He explained quietly, but Anna shook her head.

"You really shouldn't. I know I'm being melodramatic, North, trust me I do. But..."She looked up at him and wished so hard that she hadn't made the choices she had. She wished she hadn't hurt him. She wished this was easier. "...I wasn't alone those four centuries, North. And I did horrible things. I am not the same person you loved then. And you...you're still the same wonderful person that I did love."

North's hands were wrapped around hers, looking down at her close as he stepped quickly forward.

"Anastasia,"He said seriously, "tell me what happened. Tell me so I can help, so I can understand and make things better. You deserve second chance."

Anna did not deserve a second chance, at least she didn't believe so. And she would have told him just that, if the scream of a child didn't shatter their moment.

_-In The Woods, Burgess-_

Pitch wouldn't say he was doing this to punish her.

In fact, he wouldn't say that at all. That was the last thing he planned on doing to Anna. He still needed her, her broken trust in him that kept her coming back. He needed to make sure she would this time, because if he lost her...well, the entire plan would be ruined.

Anna played a key part in everything that was building up. She was the catalyst of a future he had only ever dreamed of. She was a weapon to him, and nothing more. But oh dear, was she an important little weapon to him. Anna, the girl he'd pulled from isolation, had proved to be an invaluble, if not slightly troublesom, ally.

He just needed to get her back. He just needed to show her that the Guardians wouldn't accept her how they accepted Jack. And then he just needed to use her. If she stayed then, he couldn't care less.

That is what Pitch Black told himself as he sent out the first of the nightmares.


	7. Hands

_-Burgess-_

"Jack!"

"Anna!"

North bolted after Anna as she all but sprinted to Jack's side, everyone suddenly in a frenzy of fear and movement. Bunny hefted Sophie into the air, shouting to Jack,

"Get Jamie! Now!" Jack scooped up the confused young boy whose eyes were still glued to the treeline, the treeline that Anna had refused to look at. She knew what was there. She didn't need to see to know that the nightmares were watching, not with that poignant stench of rotting fear wafting through the air.

"Anna, will you be okay?"Jack asked, kicking into the air. Even his eyes were wide and scared, panting and fingers clutching Jamie close. And for a moment, Anna wanted to say that no, no she would most definitly not be okay. But she looked again at Jamie and the terror on his face, and to Jack who looked so torn, and she nodded.

"I'll be fine, Snowflake, get them out of here." Jack, looking almost relieved, shot off into the air. With Bunny racing Sophie back home, that left Anna, Tooth, Sandy and North. Anna turned, seeing North at the ready, one of the swords in his hand and poised to strike. Even Tooth and Sandy were taking offensive stances, facing something Anna had yet to lay eyes upon.

She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, hearing the sounds of hooves on snow, of snorting nightmares. Something was stirring up a terror in her chest, but she breathed down into it and curled her hands into fists. She thought about North for a second. Just a second. About what she almost told him, and about what he almost heard. About his promise to something he couldn't even grasp yet.

And then Anna opened her eyes and turned to the nightmares.

"How many do you see, Sandy?"Tooth asked, only a hint of fear in her voice. Anna heard the tinkling of the sand images, and never quite saw the number. All she saw were the nightmares and their furious eyes, about two dozen of them stalking slowly forward. And the shadows behind them moving organically. These she hadn't seen in awhile.

"North."Anna said, resolving something, "Look past the nightmares. Do you see those shadows?"

"Yes...what are they?"

"Fearlings."

The first of the nightmares charged right to Sandy, who cut it down easily enough. Except that the first one had opened a floodgate, the others suddenly stampeding forward with deafening cries. Anna's heart jumped into her throat, her hands freezing, half-raised in the air. Instead of one choice, Anna's body made another, stumbling backwards and watching as North and Tooth and Sandy cut down the nightmares. And she just stood there.

No, this had to be different.

Not after what had just happened.

She had made the decision that, if any of this was going to keep going, if she was ever going to find the answers she needed, she couldn't wait. This had to happen _now_.

And so, as she watched North slash through black sand, the shadows on the trees slowly peeling themselves off and standing, almost like silouhettes, Anna tried to bring something up inside of her. The nightmares were dwindling, but now the Guardians saw the real threat behind them. Anna couldn't draw enough air into her lungs.

"Anna!"North called, and she snapped her head towards him, North panting and looking serious, "Fearlings, you know them?"

You know them?

And that's when it clicked. The one way Anna could destroy something from her past. That she could sever that tie, even if it was only a fraction. She steeled herself, taking in another breath and trying to still her trembling hands. Only when she did that, rolling her shoulders backwards, did she feel a release in her chest. A flowing, hot sensation through her arms, trembling and buzzing and almost painful, uncomftroble in her veins. It pricked at her fingertips.

And she nodded.

"Yeah. I know them."

She stood straighter than she had in weeks, taking deep, controlled breaths. Her fingers spread out at her sides, reaching, feeling for something. Individual threads constantly in motion, feeling them along her skin, scratching and living and breathing.

"What do we do with them?"Tooth's sweet voice asked through the low rumble of shadows detatching from trees and a few nightmares still left standing, hoofing at the ground.

"Nothing," Anna said, reaching her hands forward, forcing herself to focus only on the nightmares, only on the sensations right at her fingertips, at the absolute power flowing through her, "You don't do anything. I've got this."

North might have said something to her in that moment, but she never heard it. Her blood rushed through her ears, the noises of two-dozen beating black hearts filling her head and overflowing any and everything around her. The nightmares were charging, the fearlings were lunging forward to her, right at her and no one else.

And like a mammoth snapping a twig, Anna closed her hands and severed the flow to her fingertips.

She noticed that dying was never sudden, not even something like this. First, they all froze. Stilled for seconds, as if the life left in them could only do that much before it got caught up in the fuse. That moment, that still little moment when everything came back to her and she was suddenly back in this world, when everything surrounding her was in focus, she was allowed to see what she had just done. She couldn't change it, but she could still see for that powerful moment.

And then, like actual sand and shadows, they melted into the ground. Into the snow, leaving it just as white as it had been moments before. And Anna dropped her arms, sucking in a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, looking straight forward. She knew he was looking at her. She just couldn't look at him.

"...Woah. What was that?"Jack was back, apparently. Which meant that Aster was as well. Anna swallowed, but the lump in her throat stayed, her hands pressing to the sides of her thighs. She still did not look at anyone.

"She just controlled those things, didn't she? Did she just make them go away?"Aster's voice was no less accusing than she'd expected it to be, but those words did still hurt. They still dug under her skin until she felt them crawling into her head, lip caught between her teeth. All she could do was shake her head.

"No."

"But you said you knew them. I heard you, we were just getting back and-"

"Bunny!"North's tone was harsh, but Anna heard and undercurrent of worry in there. Of fear. Anna had to take in a deep breath and turn. It was strangely difficult, turning and seeing all of them. To actually see in real life what she'd imagined their faces would look like. North was serious, dark, but his eyes were wide and worried. Tooth looked terrified, Sandy looked curious, Aster looked accusing, and Jack looked innocently confused.

Anna wished she could have known them better.

"Anna, you saved us. Es all fine, you don't need to explain-"

"No, North! She does!" Aster interrupted him furiously, stepping forward with a fire in his eyes and his paws in fists. Anna, out of reflex, took an equal amount of steps back, and as she did saw the panic rise in North's eyes. He was scared that she would run again, that she would hurt him again. Really, that's all she ever did was hurt him. She couldn't blame him.

"You've been covering for her, lettin' her slide off with what she's been doing all these years gone! She hurt you, and suddenly comes back and tries to pretend that everything is ok?"Aster was shouting now, pointing a boomerang in Anna's direction.

"I'm not."She tried, not knowing why she defended herself. She knew how this ended, this was just foreplay. Aster gave her a look of pure malice, brows hooding his eyes, and asked in a low voice,

"Oh, yer not huh? Not here with yer crook idea of making up to North what you did to him? I didn't trust you the moment you came in here, something about you was off, sheila. Now I know what it is." Her heart dropped at his words, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She saw the rest of them looking between the two, no one knowing exactly what to say. Except Aster, of course. "You knew those things, huh? You knew what they were? Didn't we see you right after we ran into them those nights ago, huh?"

"Bunny, you aren't saying-"

"I am! You look me in the eye, Anna, and if you actually care about North, if you've got a shred of honor left in you, tell the bloody truth: You work with Pitch, don't you?"

And there, from a foreign mouth, was it. The words she'd been waiting for. Finally, finally, someone had called her out on the one thing that haunted her. The thing that kept her in a constant whirlpool of self-deprication and crushing guilt, pressing down on her lungs and making it hard to live. And there, right there, someone had finally said it. And strangly enough, it almost made things easier.

"Bunny! How dare you?!"North thundered at his friend, eyes wide and Aster never taking his off Anna.  
>"Anna wouldn't...no!"Jack shook his head. Even though it was easier now than ever before to bring it out, to reach inside and rip the words from her chest, it equally crushed her. She felt it in her bones, the crippling weight of coming clean and knowing that it meant giving up something that could have been wonderful. Because to recouncil with North, to be friends with Jack at the very least, that could have changed her life.<p>

And now, this was all she had.

"...No,"She said, now her voice at an average level but sounding so loud to her, "he's right."

Aster, despite his accusations, looked almost surprised. Though not as much as North, whose hands dropped slowly to his sides, a look of pain and sadness and betrayal all washing over his old face. And Anna couldn't bear to look at him, but she made herself. She owed him at least that much. So she looked into the eyes of the only thing she could have ever called home, and she told him everything.

"I told you I wasn't alone all those years. When I left, because I was scared and angry and lost, Pitch found me. He made a lot of promises, and to someone who had nothing left, those promises were enough... I can't say I'm sorry. I am, but it doesn't mean anything anymore. I did horrible things and there's no way I can take any of that back. You just saw what I can do, I helped _make _those things, North, I figured out how to bring shadows and fear to _life_. I did that." Her voice cracked and she took in a breath, blinking away a foginess at her eyes. The lump in her throat was painful.

"Anna...you made mistake. You were young."North was trying, and that almost killed her. She might have preferred him to act like Aster, at least she knew she deserved that. She shook her head, almost angry that he was sticking up for her.

"In the beginning, but how long do you think it went on? North, I tried to run dozens of times, and each time I came back to him. When you saw me? I was running."

"You ran! You didn't want to-"

"But I _did_, North!"She snapped, everyone else moving back a bit, "I didn't want to, but I did all those things! I still did them! Don't you dare tell me that I'm a good person because I tried to get out, because I'm not!"

"Anna, you are!"He tried, but she shook her head, heart pounding and desperately trying to keep control, a layer of snow melting around her feet. And it all felt too similar. She was going through it again. And she couldn't do that. So she turned, and Anna tried to leave, but North's hand caught on her shoulder. She shook him off violently, ready to run, ready to leave.

A ripping sound violently stilled the air, and Anna had only a second to look back and see the image of North holding the ripped white cloth in his hand, looking from it to her in a pained confusion. Then she left. Then Anna turned and ran, into the treeline, faster than any of them could follow. As far as she knew, none of them did.

And she ran.

Anna ran, and ran, and ran. Because that was one thing she was good at.

Hit the ground running, don't stop.

_-Back at the Clearing-_

It looked so small in his hand. So small and torn, fragile and broken. North couldn't describe the feeling he had in his chest any better than thinking that he had picked at a wound that hadn't yet healed. Now, something was pouring out. And she was gone.

Again.

Anastasia, who was still so young and so scared, was gone again. He hadn't done enough to make her stay. North felt like he couldn't breathe.

"...North?"Tooth's soft voice came from somewhere near him, her gentle hand on his shoulder, but he didn't acknowledge her. Instead, he stopped a rising pain in his throat and numbly reached into his coat, taking out the snowglobe without looking away from the white fabric.

He had made her fight when she wanted to stay.

He had forced her to stay when she wanted to leave.

He had kept her quiet when she had to speak.

He had just wanted her back _so bad_.

He couldn't remember saying anything into the snowglobe, but he must have gone through the motions, because when he finally did look away from the fabric a portal was in front of him. Jack said something about looking for someone, but Tooth hushed him. When North paused, when he looked into the swirling colors in front of him, he caught a snippet of their conversation.

"He needs us with him."

"But Anna..."

"She'll be fine. You can look for her later...we need to be with him."

"...I know."

North didn't stop them from following him, honestly he did want them with him. So when he passed through, never stopping when he appeared on the other side, North silently led the group across the overlook and into his office. Yetis and elves cast him concerned glances, but North felt too hardened, too broken at the same time to answer their silent questions. He just pushed forward and opened the door to his office, the others following behind him.

Someone shut the door, and North fell into his cushy armchair. He felt like, had he stood any longer, his body would have given up and just let him fall to the ground. It was quiet now, quiet with only sounds of shuffling filling the pockets of silence, and North could only imagine her face.

So scared and so desperate for him to retaliate in a way that he never could. All of that pain behind such young eyes, so much fear. Anna was a troubled girl, and she had always held a sense of not belonging ever since she'd been given her powers...

"She thought she did not deserve to be saved." North said quietly, almost to himself. The others listened carefully, gently, no one speaking up or moving a muscle. And he spoke without really knowing why. "When the Man in the Moon gave her a second chance at life, she felt that it should have gone to someone else. Her parents. She never knew how wonderful she really was, how full of love and care and empathy..." North stopped a moment, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing out.

"...Her life has been too hard, and she hasn't gotten the chance to know that she deserves forgiveness... She deserved so much better than this."

He felt tiny hands at his face, and that's how he knew he'd shed a few tears. When he opened his eyes, he saw Sandy slowly floating back and making images over his head.

_We can bring her back. We can tell her all of this, make her believe. I thought she was very nice. She smelt like leaves._

North rubbed a hand down his face and nodded to Sandy, looking down into his own hands.

"I should have gone after her before now, I should have made her stay...but I'd been trying that, and still she left. Maybe it is that...she does not want to be here with me..." North was quiet now, the realization of that possibility dawning on him. That maybe the little girl he raised and thought of as his own child would not come back simply because she didn't want to be there. That was another kind of pain.

The silence dragged on, and then,

"North...North, I'm sorry mate." Bunny. Bunny was speaking quietly. "I didn't know...I just, I didn't want you ta get hurt, I thought that...if I could have just kept you from getting close again, then she couldn't hurt you. I was wrong. I think I was wrong that she would hurt you. I don't know if I was wrong about her, but I was wrong. About a lot of things, and...I-I'm sorry. I'll go look for her, I'll bring her back."

"Bunny."North stopped him, and looked up at his friend who had never looked worse. And he shook his head, offering the smallest of small smiles. "I am not angry at you still. I know what you wanted, and you have made mistake as I have. Water under bridge."

But Jack didn't look like he shared the same easy sentiments. In fact, his hands were clutching the staff harder, his jaw tight and eyes wide.

"North, we have to go get her now. What if Pitch finds her first? What if he wants to fight her alone, or what if he gets her back? I know what it's like, I know how he can be, and if Anna's in a bad place right now...North, I can't just let her be out there alone." Jack insisted, and North was slowly starting to pull himself together. Slowly, and not completely, but it was starting.

"Anna is very good at not wanting to be found, Jack. There could be more nightmares, or Pitch himself...we must all go together. We will look."North agreed, and Tooth fluttered to the ground near all of them.

"Maybe,"She offered, "we should give her some time. A day, and we go looking tomorrow. Give her time to...sort things out? I promise, Jack, we'll go bright and early tomorrow. I just don't think she's in a state to listen right now."

North wanted to go. He wanted to know she was safe and tell her she was sorry and tell her she was forgiven. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go. He wanted to tell her she had a choice in everything she did. And it took every ounce of effort he had not to push himself out of that seat and go find her right then and there. But he knew Tooth was right from the ripped fabric in his hand. He squeezed it, and nodded.

"Tomorrow."He whispered tiredly.

And tomorrow, he would find her. This time, he would find her.

_-Five Centuries Ago-_

"Look at those ones!"

"Ha! So bright tonight, looks like Manny is surrounded by many bright friends tonight!"

Anna laughed at how North had put it into words, both laying on their backs in the snow with their hands behind their heads, her head inches from his. The stars above them filled the sky, some standing apart in pockets of darkness, others clustered into beautiful wave-like patterns. Tonight, as they lay apart from the village with its candles flickering, nothing was around to dim the light of the stars. They were beautiful, glimmering to them, impossibly far away.

"North?"

"Yes, bluebird?"

"Could I make a star come to life? I can do it to plants and people and animals, what if I tried it on a star?"

North chuckled, the kind of laugh that only someone with his spirit could have. Not condescending, not amused, but excited as if he'd been told of the most fantastic adventure.

"Anna, stars are already alive! Look at them, all of them in their magnificence! They pulse with life, they are so full of life that they give life to all that is surrounding them!" His hands fanned out in front of him, just over her head, and she saw a map of stars between his flexed fingers. "Which, if you think about it, makes you a star, too." North finished warmly, and though she rolled her eyes Anna did smile.

"I don't shine like that."She teased, and North scoffed.

"You have never seen yourself, have you? You shine like all the stars in the sky, Anna! You are brighter than the sun! You just have to see it for yourself! Once I finish making that reflection glass I told you about, then you will see!"

Anna knew he was exaggerating, afterall she could look down at her body now and know she didn't glow. But how North said it, how North said everything, always made her believe.

And that night, Anna did believe that she shined as bright as North told her she did.

_-Present Day, The Woods Near Burgess-_

Anna didn't know how long she'd been running, or at what time she had stopped and stood near a frozen lake. All she knew was that she was looking into her slightly distorted reflection, seeing dark bruises under her eyes and a look that was a mix of terror and exauhstion. She scrubbed a hand down her face, and when she looked again all she saw different was that she wasn't afraid, so much as alone. Completely, utterly alone.

But that, at least, did not last long.

"In my defense, I did tell you." The voice walked up almost silently behind her, and Anna bit the inside of her cheek to keep from doing something drastic. Drastic like hitting him, that is.

Because even now, even after everything, Anna did not want to kill Pitch.

"Why do you want me back so badly?" She asked, her voice thin and throat hoarse. Pitch tossed a rock onto the frozen lake, the noise sounding strange and almost comical, if Anna had anything left in her to laugh.

"I need you for your powers, dear, you know that. You can't say that I've ever lied to you about my intentions." He threw another rock, and it wasn't until then that Anna realized these weren't rocks at all. They were solidified shadows, hitting the lake surface and spreading out on the other side, creeping up a large boulder on the other side and dissapearing. "This, though, had another reason to it. You see, Anna, the Guardians aren't sunshine and rainbows as you wanted them to be."

"I didn't want them to like me." She stated simply.

She stood there next to Pitch Black, telling him all of this. And it crept back in, that pathetic, weak, needing feeling. How easy was it to tell Pitch Black, and not North? To tell the King of Nightmares and not the man who had practically raised her? It seemed demented, like poor judgement on her part, and she thought that maybe it was a bit of that. But she knew the truth, the one thing that had crippled her all those other times.

Despite everything he did, Pitch Black was the only person who knew guilt like Anna did. And from that, they were two broken people who needed the other. Anna just wished she didn't. She wished she didn't get a relief whenever they spoke, that someone understood her. She wished she could hate Pitch Black completely. She wished she could be afraid of him. She wished she could know how despicable he was. But she didn't, because Anna knew too much about him. And he of her.

"You wanted justification, hm? I always knew you were a bit odd."He said almost boredly, as if he hadn't just purposefully ruined any chance she had at redemption. Pitch was like that, Anna knew. He felt something deeper, his words meant more, but he hid them deep inside for his knowledge only.

"I wanted to be better. And I will be."

"How do you propose you'll do that, dear?"

"I'm not going back with you."

Pitch scoffed, as if the idea were that ridiculous, and maybe it was. But Anna had already made the decision, she couldn't go back on it. Even if it meant uncertainty, Anna wouldn't go back.

The strangest part?

She wanted to leave who she was. Not necessarily Pitch.

"Oh, of course you won't my dear! You still do have a job to do, afterall. I fully expect you to go back to them."His words were cold and his lazy movements mocking, the black cloak around him dusting the ground in black shadow. A sick feeling twisted in Anna's gut, and her palms pressed against her outer thighs.

Pitch knew what that meant. He'd studied her for centuries, and knew her little quirks and habits. If her hands were in her pockets, she felt out of place. If they hung at her sides, she was comforted. Fists meant she was about to run. Pressed to her outer thighs, she was trapped. Anna's hands gave everything away about her, everything that her steely eyes hid. And Pitch felt it, almost a ghosted shadow over her, all the pent-up fear that coiled in her head.

Afraid of what she was and what she would be. Afraid of the Guardians not accepting her. Afraid of them accepting her, and her not deserving it. Afraid of staying, afraid of leaving. Anna was forever stuck in a suspended grey area, one that fascinated Pitch Black endlessly. He looked at her now, his head tilting and her eyes looking down at her wavy reflection in the uneven ice. Her jaw was tight, she was breathing a bit heavily. Pitch saw all of this.

He liked to think it gave him power over her. He was wrong, of course, and he knew that. But he still liked to think. He just saw what he did to her and tried to press down that sensation that what he was doing was wrong. A feeling only she had ever given him, something new that he had never actually forgiven her for. Maybe it was that they were so similar, that he'd found a semblance in another person, something he thought he'd never find.

That was why he kept her, amoung other obvious reasons. Knowing his guilt was felt by one other, in a dysfunctional and completely twisted way, comforted him. And he knew it did the same for her. This had never been spoken, he just knew. As he knew that she would, eventually, bend to his will.

And he pressed down the guilt of that almost mechanically.

"Anna, you know you can't fight me on this. You've been hurt enough tonight. Wait to tomorrow, then go back to them and beg or whatever it is that you do that captures their hearts. I'll tell you when I need you next, dear Anna." He mused to her, taking a smooth step onto the ice of the lake, ready to head back to his home and to put his mind to rest. But he stopped after a few steps, hearing nothing behind him. Pitch looked over his shoulder to the solitairy Anna.

He looked at her hands. They were playing with the sleeves of her worn hoodie.

Discomfort, decision, and deep thought.

"Are you coming?"He asked, trying to sound as if he didn't care for the answer. Anna shook her head.

"No."

She did not say anything else, and that was how Pitch knew he had won.

And it was odd.

That used to bring him joy.


	8. A Tale of Two Disasters

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

"We'll find her."Tooth's promise went beyond North as they all trudged back into the Workshop, the portal closing behind them. Yetis looked over curiously, the elves scuttering around North's feet.

"It's been two ruddy days, how hard is it to find one person?"Bunny mummbled, brushing crisp leaves off his shoulders. He'd gotten tree-looking duty when Jack shot off to look in the New England town.

"I only found her last time because she wanted me to...I think."Jack explained, twirling the staff with much less enthusiasm than normal. Sandy next to him made signs that Jack was roughly able to translate into, _'she seems to be comftorble with you. Maybe we should send just you out next time?'_ Jack almost smiled at that, and North nodded.

"Maybe Sandy is right, maybe she just feels..." North cut himself off and stopped halfway up the stairs. The others almost ran into his back, making complaints until they moved around him. Then they saw his wide-eyed gaze and followed it, all the way up to the overlook where something waited for them.

_-Santoff Claussen, Overlook-_

No one was home. She moved slowly, delicately, as if she didn't really belong there, as if she were someone visiting someone else's house. And to her, in a sense, she was. She stepped as if she did not belong there, heart pounding in her ears and making her way quietly, almost silently, to the overlook. She'd come in through a back door, not wanting to deal with any wrath from the yetis if they decided they didn't like her abandoning their boss twice in one lifetime. And so far, she'd avoided everything.

But that also meant that North wasn't there, and that struck a chord of fear in her chest. If he wasn't here, where was he? Had he come home two nights ago? Had he been okay, had she actually wounded him that deeply? She thought of his face, of all the things she had said, and cringed. She hoped he was there beyond all measurable hope. He had to be okay. People needed him.

And just as she was about to go into a full-blown panic attack, there were footsteps and voices behind her. Anna spun around, both shocked and relieved to see them all standing there about halfway up the stairs, all wide-eyed, all present.

And then that little trickle of fear ebbed in. There was a silence, all of them looking at her without any indication of joy or hatred. There was just them, all of them, waiting for a sign to do anything. Anna took a breath in, rubbing her sweaty palms on her jeans, and tried not to think of all the reasons she was there. Because, as she had promised herself, she would wait and see.

Then, and only then, would she chose one way or another.

"...Hi." She greeted awkwardly, giving a tiny wave. North's eyes lit up, his mouth dropping open a bit, and Anna saw relief fill blue eyes. Immdiately, he began bounding up the stairs towards her, the others following suit. She almost took a step away, but North saw and stopped short of tackling her, instead choosing to grab her by the arms and look her over, checking to make sure she was there.

"Anna, you are safe? You are not harmed? Where have you been?" Anna blinked at him, surprised, something warm welling up in her chest. She didn't understand.

"You aren't angry?"She asked quietly, confused. Jack stumbled to the ground next to North, looking like he just flew eight hundred miles.

"Angry? Anna, we went looking all over for you!"Jack exclaimed, North never letting go of her arms even as Jack walked up to her. Anna paused, taking a moment.

She looked around her at everyone, seeing the Guardians stepping up quietly around North and giving her equal looks of worry. Five pairs of eyes on her, five people surrounding her and happy that she was there. Five people who wanted her there. Five. Five, when she'd only ever had one before, if that. Anna slowly looked at each of them, a lump forming in her throat that she tried to swallow and failed, a tightness in her chest threatening to quiver her lip and blur her eyes. She tried to take a deep breath in.

Anna did not know it, but in that moment she had already made her decision to stay. She didn't think that even Pitch could have forseen something like this. She looked back to North and for the first time in four centuries, she felt like maybe, maybe she was home.

"...You know how sorry I am, right?"She asked, and North broke into a beautiful, teary-eyed smile. He nodded, laughing, and let go of her arms to take one giant hand and smooth it across her hair.

"I know, Anna. I know. And I think it is time for us all to talk, to clear the air. Yes?"He offered it gently, more gently than he'd done anything so far, and Anna wondered just what had happened after she'd left. She couldn't argue with him, in fact, she didn't want to. She wanted to talk. She needed to talk. What they'd been doing, those small actions and tiny words, that hadn't been enough. They deserved explanations.

"Yes."She agreed, and North nodded and stepped back.

"Then, to office? Phil! Hot coco! With tiny marshmallows!" North called to a yeti who'd just walked up the stairs, turning and leading them to a familiar hallway. As she walked, Jack giving her an over-the-moon smile and nudging her, Anna noticed something. Or, more specifically, someone.

Aster.

He walked near her, and was casting glances her way. But they weren't angry. They didn't even have an ounce of hate in them. In fact, and Anna had to do a double-take to make sure, they looked almost guilty. But that wasn't right. Anna was the angsty one in this cluster, not Aster. But after awhile, she caught him glancing her way, and for a moment their eyes connected.

And between the two of them, a thousand apologies flew silently into the air.

And just like that, as they both quickly looked away from the other, it was almost as if they were forgiven. Almost.

They all filed into the office, Sandy closing the door behind them with a big push. North motioned for Anna to sit in one of the hefty armchairs near a roaring fire, and she almost said no. But then, she figured, she'd said no to North enough. So she moved around and sat a bit awkwardly down, North across from her with Jack perching on a footrest next to Tooth, Aster standing with his arms crossed next to North, ears and eyes down. Sandy floated to rest comftorbly next to Anna, which honestly she still wasn't used to. This little man that Pitch had cursed so often, sitting politely and silently next to her.

"So, Anna,"North began, and Anna already felt her stomach crawl, "tell us what happened."

"From where?"

"The beginning."

Anna had to pause a moment, collecting her thoughts. 'The beginning' was such a simple way to say it. It was the beginning of a new life, it was the beginning of a sort of demented kinship. How could she possible say all that she had done had made her hate herself without sounding pathetic and evil? How could she say that she hated what she had done...but had never really hated Pitch? How could she put that into words?

She looked at their expectant faces, some of whom she'd only said a handful of words to, and knew she had to say something. Knew they deserved at least that much. And so, she began.

"Pitch found me two days after I left. He promised me he wouldn't...you know, cast me out because of what I could do. I don't know why I didn't trust you like I trusted him, North, I swear I don't. Because I should have trusted you, I shouldn't have run and I should have believed that, after everything we'd done for each other, you weren't the kind of person to leave me. I really don't know."

"Anna,"North said softly, "is okay. All is forgiven, we are wiping clean the slate. Now, go on. Did Pitch hurt you? What did he make you do?"

Anna shook her head, her fingers absent-mindedly playing with runs in her jeans and thinking back on four centuries. Four centuries, and what Pitch had done in them.

Her answer surprised even her.

"Pitch never hurt me. In fact...it was almost peaceful. He made me do terrible things, but he never actually...hurt me, you know? Everything was my choice, even if he gave me a bit of a push...alright, more than a push. He always knew how to get his way, but he warned me in the beginning. Pitch never lied to me about what he was trying to do, he just needed to use my powers. I ran the first time. He got me back within a day, which sounds pretty pathetic but you have to understand that I thought I was alone.

"I know I wasn't now, but then Pitch was all I had. So I figured out a way to take fear and manifest it into nightmares by taking dreamsand and killing the joy inside of it...sorry about that."She apologized to Sandy, but the tiny man made a brushing motion. 'Wiping clean the slate', he was copying North, and she was eternally grateful for that. She looked back to North and went on without stopping. She had to.

This was the worst part.

"I made the fearlings out of thin air. I took an emotion and brought it to life. Really, if I have to get specific, it was shadows that contained secrets and fears. I took them and brought them to life, and they turned into these...these things. These things that hurt children and terrified them, they crawled along the walls of Pitch's cave and...I made them. I could have run away so much sooner, and I could have just plainly said 'no', but in the end I always crumbled.

"I can't tell you how that's haunted me. That I did something so awful that it spawned something worse. No matter how many times anyone can forgive me, I can't forgive myself for that. That's...that's unforgivable, what I did because I was scared of being alone. Only most recently, when everything got to be too much and Pitch wanted to rise again, that was the only time I thought I could really get away.

"But he followed me, and he almost hurt all of you. And I thought that...I couldn't get away. After everything was going so well, by my standards at least, after all of that I still couldn't do anything _right_...And I left again. And I shouldn't have done that." Anna finally stopped, breathing in deeper than she ever had before, and looked up at North, then to everyone else. "I'm really not good at people-things. Which you've probably noticed. But I don't want to hurt any of you, and..."She paused, not sure which words to use, trying to sound as sincere as she felt, "...you're all a lot nicer than I deserve."

"Anna,"Tooth spoke this time, almost surprising her, "it's okay. We aren't angry. You were young, you made a mistake, and now you're here with us. Join the party." She teased, and Jack smiled.

Anna shifted in her seat, checking Tooth's face, replaying her words. Anna had been forgiven for a lot of things in a short period of time, but it never ceased to amaze her these people's capacity for forgiveness. For letting go.

"Is nothing too big,"North brushed off, Anna gaping at him, "we have defeated nightmares before! And fearlings? Pah! They may be strong, but we are always stronger, are we not?"

"Of course we are!"Jack cheered, and Sandy gave a tiny thumbs-up. Anna didn't want to tell them how strong the fearlings were. She didn't want to tell them how horrible and nasty and deadly they were. She just didn't want to. Half because she didn't want to rain on the good emotion that was finally, finally, seeping through the air into everyone's hearts. The other half was because somewhere deep, deep down inside of her, Anna had already made the choice to stay with them. And if she was with them, they could win. They would win.

"So..."She started awkwardly, hands rubbing against the fabric of her jeans, all eyes on her in a quick silence, "...how exactly did you end up here?"

North's face lit up with the kind of spirit Anna remembered vividly. His eyes shone and his mouth opened and his hands were already up, as if he were about to jump right into a reinactment of some ridiculous adventure. And there he was. The North she remembered. He burst right into it, telling how long it took for him to find the other Guardians, how they all banded together to defeat Pitch. He didn't ask, but Anna told him what was going on behind the scenes during their battles. How frustrated Pitch would get, his temper tantrums.

And for once, nothing hurt.

For once, for a beautiful moment, Anna sat in the midst of a story that everyone added to, and she almost felt like she was home.

_Home_.

That was an unspeakably wonderful feeling.

Eventually, though, the light outside the window began to dim and purples and yellows were cast across the room. Everyone had at least one mug of coco empty beside them, North beating out the pack with six, currently working on a seventh. And in the midst of it all, Anna realized she'd started smiling. Smiling for so long that her face her in the best kind of way.

"You seriously invented bendy straws? I don't buy that one, I swear to MiM."She shook her head, and North opened his mouth to defend himself, but all that came out was a lengthy yawn. That was when Tooth finally fluttered up, wings a blurr though she herself looked exauhsted, and ordered gently,

"It's time for everyone to get to bed. It's been an awfully big day, and we have a lot to do tomorrow. Now shoo! Everyone, off to bed!"

"Everyone stay here tonight! Will be better this way, like a bonding excercise, no?"North offered, and either everyone agreed or they were too exauhsted to disagree, because they all mumbled and waddled off out the door. Anna was the last, standing tiredly and in a strange kind of fog, slowly easing herself into this idea that she was safe here. That she belonged.

"Oh, Anna, wait a moment."North asked behind her, and Anna turned to see him reaching for something in his coat. She didn't know what to expect.

The white cloth that had ripped before was not it.

"You kept that?"She asked, looking at it with a kind of reverance, hanging in North's hand. It was stitched extremely intricately back together on the corner that it had ripped.

"As you did."North answered fondly, and gave her an asking look. Slowly, she nodded, and he unfolded it and wrapped it loosely around her neck again, tying it in back. When he stepped back from her, she gently ran her fingers along it. A breath of air went through her body, a relief, a familiar sensation flooding her. Her fingers brushing against the fabric, and she was okay. Finally.

"...Do you think things can go back the way they were?"She asked quietly.

"No. I do not think we are the same people, we cannot be the same way we once were. But that does not mean we cannot be better." North smoothed back her hair and placed a kiss on her forehead, much in the same way he used to do when she was much younger. He didn't need to lean down as far, and she didn't giggle or swat him away.

Instead, they stood and looked at each other, knowing they could learn to love the people they were now. Knowing that things could be better now.

"Now, off to bed before Tooth had my head!"North urged softly, steering Anna to the door. She chuckled and pulled the door open, turning to North one last time.

"Thank you. I don't-"

"You do."North cut her off, still smiling. And they both knew what the other was saying. _You deserve forgiveness._ Someday, maybe, she would believe him. When they said their goodnights and went their own ways, Anna saw someone farther up ahead of her. At first she thought it could be a very small yeti, but when she got closer to her door she saw tall ears and long feet.

A worry struck through her as she got closer, realizing who it was that stood outside of her door. Then Aster saw her, pushing off the wall almost awkwardly and sheathing a boomerang he'd been tossing in the air. For once, nothing about him read hostile. His arms were down, his fur was flat, and he looked almost as surprised to see her as she was of him.

"Anna, hi, er..."He paused, trying to gather his words and scratching the back of his head, eyes darting around. _'Is this what I look like?' _Anna wondered for a few seconds before Aster gathered himself and locked eyes with her. "I know we had that whole discussion in there just now, but I, uh, I know I wasn't exactly welcoming when you showed up."

He was apologizing. That was certainly not something Anna had expected.

"You had a right not to be. I didn't exactly leave a good mark, and you were looking out for North. Someone has to, right?"She tried to comfort him, not knowing what it was like to be on the recieving end of an apology. Aster seemed to relax a bit, though, and shrugged.

"I still shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry, sheila, I guess I can be kinda thick-headed sometimes...truce?"He offered a paw, and Anna felt a strange sensation of calm. As if maybe, someday, this truce could mean something. That she could make friends, like she used to be able to. She took his hand and offered a smile, nodding.

"Truce."

_-A Frozen Lake in Burgess-_

He stood in a patch of moonlight, knowing the words that weren't spoken. His hands folded behind him, and already in his chest he could feel it. Somehow, through that bond that they shared as outcasts and martyrs, Pitch knew that Anna was with the Guardians. And not in the way he wanted her there.

He supposed he should have seen this coming. She was restless, even before the Guardians came into view. But the difference between when she'd been morally conflicted and then was that now she had someone to go to. Someone else offering her safe haven. And so she abandoned him.

He didn't mind, truly. He knew her reasonings, and he respected them. He was a terrible man, North had practically raised her. Ignoring that Pitch had been there when North never could have been. Ignoring that Pitch had accepted her gifts first. Ignoring how he'd comforted her and lived with her and found a unique semblance with her that no one else could ever have with her. Ignoring all of that, Pitch could understand. And if he was good at anything, it was ignoring.

She was scared now, he knew. He saw it in her eyes, in her movements. She was trapped in a space he'd tried to hide her from. In all he had done, the very least was that he'd tried to make her decision easy. He needed her power for selfish goals, but at the same time Pitch Black knew there was more than that. There was someone, finally, who understood. Jack had come close, very close, but Anna...she had lost everything, she was unstable and selfish and impulsive. She ran unless she knew she could win. She was just like him.

Except that Anna had redeeming qualities. He'd seen them from day one, knew they would eventually lead her away from him. Kindness, even to the Nightmare King. Kind words and soft intentions and a good moral compass. She was not perfect, but he knew she was a better person than him. And for that, he knew that the day would come that she would leave, and he knew that he'd never truly hate her for it. Just as, for reasons even he could not fathom, Anna would never hate nor fear Pitch Black.

"You know,"Pitch mused to the moon, looking at the drifts of snow surrounding him in the night, "she never would have survived there. You made her immortal, I made her feel like she belonged somewhere." The moon stayed in a single silver stream down at him, and something he heard from it made him crook a smile and laugh. It was something only the two of them would ever understand. Not Pitch and the Moon, but Pitch and Anna.

They were the same. Two disasters settling together, like an earthquake and a tsunami. Despite everything the would do to the other, despite all their animosity and selfishness, that was one thing Pitch would never say aloud. It had been wonderful, somewhere inside of him that wasn't rotted black, to have Anna there. Even before they confided in the other, even before they gained that level of trust, they clung to the other's existance. Pitch would deny anything further, he would keep himself as detatched as possible in knowing that she would have to share the same fate as the Guardians, but it was true. It was the only true thing he had ever known.

They needed each other. They needed to know they weren't alone.

"I don't care if she makes it out of this unscathed, MiM my dear old friend, but I am interested in knowing one thing: If she makes it out, what will she think of _you_ in the end?"

Clouds moved then, and slowly, ever slowly, the moon faded from view. Pitch Black was in darkness again, shadows twisting in the corners of the lake, trying to fill a space she had left. And he laughed.

Bitterly, Pitch Black laughed.


	9. A Right That Can't Be Wronged

_-So sorry it took me so long to upload, and it's going to take some time over these next few weeks as well with NaNoWriMo starting up. Thank you all for sticking with it and supporting the story, reviews are encouraged. Enjoy.-_

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

As hard as Anna tried to convince herself of otherwise, there was still one thing left to tell North. She stood in the midst of scuttering yetis and troublesome elves, tripping as she tried to focus on a hundred things at once. North jaunted along in front of her, pointing things out and calling out to yetis who were working diligently on toys. Christmas was coming up soon, that much Anna knew. She'd tried to make herself forget in the past, but all the decorations and the snow and the peppermint in the air, and she never forgot.

"Ah-ha! Anna, come here, see this!"North exclaimed, motioning her over. She stepped up to him, almost faceplanting as she misstepped to avoid a cluster of elves running around with tinsel looped around their ears, and leaned in to see what he was pointing at. If she couldn't get his attention, he might as well have hers.

North picked up a tiny silver tube with glass at both ends, convex and shiny and casting a rainbow onto the desk beneath it. On the sides were little knobs with nothing written on them, but it looked like the yeti had been in the process of doing that. He huffed and crossed his arms, tapping a finger on a furry forearm and waiting for North to give him back the toy.

"You see this? Es one of my favorites!"He turned it in his massive hands, making the toy look like a toothpick, and Anna tried to smile and agree.

"Oh, yeah, that's a nice...uh...telescope-thing?"She tried, and North got a smile in his eyes that told her he didn't expect her to know what it was. Amused, he held it out to her, and Anna took a moment before tentatively reaching out for it and taking the toy in the palm of her hand. It was about six inches long and not heavy at all, feeling as if the inside were hollow. She turned it around with the curiosity of a child, feeling divets and looking at the glass on both ends. She couldn't even begin to guess what it was.

"Look, look! Into the glass part! Tell me what you see!"

Anna turned it around and, albeit skeptically, she brought the instrument up to her eye and looked in. And inside was a magnificent scene so familiar that Anna was taken abruptly aback for a moment. Her breath caught as she looked inside and saw, in miniature paper figurines, the image of a tall man in a red coat with a fancy brown beard and a young girl, both in the snow and laughing. She knew it, even though everything was paper and two-dimensional. She knew it.

Slowly, she turned the knobs, realizing that the scene moved. It shifted on a gear, the man and girl having a snowball fight, now the girl slightly older and the man a bit rounder. She twisted the next notch, and it was a scene that Anna herself scarcely remembered. The girl was in a bed, the man next to her holding her hand, hunched over with a look of mourning. Anna shifted them just slightly, and the scene turned to a moonbeam falling over the bed and the man sitting up.

Next notch down. The girl and the man were in a field of wilted grass, the snow having just melted, and when Anna turned the notch again the grass sprang to life with flowers blossoming in bunches all around them. Her breath let out, and slowly, very slowly, she moved to the next notch down.

The scene changed. Now, it was of the man considerably larger and his hair much whiter, sitting in a chair by the fire. The girl sat across from him, now older as well, her hair shaved underneath and her clothes a bit baggy and the same bluebird-egg blue. They were smiling, holding hot coco. Anna stared into it for a moment longer, wondering if that was how it really was now. Was it really all that simple? Could everything be summed up in a few scenes of paper?

Gently, Anna took the instrument from her face and blinked down at it, seemingly too small for what it held inside.

"You like?"North asked quietly. Anna looked up at him, saw his hopeful face, and smiled with a lump in her throat.

"I love it. The man got pretty big, though."

"Hey!"He argued and laughed, wrapping an arm around Anna's shoulders and pulling her into a gently playful hug, kissing the top of her head. Now this she remembered. Warm and right, a faint memory slowly coming back to her.

And that's when Anna knew she had to tell him. Before it all ended.

"North...there's something I left out last night. There's one more thing I have to tell-"

"Wooohooo! Coming through, watch out! Jack Frost in the house!"Jack burst into the scene, icing the railing as he slid down it on bare feet, Tooth and Sandy darting along behind him. Aster was rolling his eyes, but bounding towards him. Before Jack could hit the ground, Aster reached up and tripped him, sending Jack tumbling over the railing as Aster reached us first. A smug smile on his face, he crossed his arms and nodded to us.

"Oi, I'm 'bout to head to the Warren and I got that paint you wanted. Pick it up?"Aster asked, North patting my back so hard I almost fell over.

"Of course! We will all take trip! Anna, Warren is lovely!" He leaned down so that only Anna could hear him, "Not as lovely as Workshop, of course."

"Fine with me. You want the first-class look around, sheila?"Aster asked. He seemed to be sincere, albeit a bit gentle and awkward. He was trying to make up for what he had done, watching his words and actions, but Anna was floored that he'd invite her in the first place. No kindness needed.

Everyone stood and waited, which was something she was grateful they had picked up. No more yanking her this way and that, no more speaking over her. Anna could finally breathe and think. Aster looked sincere enough, and Jack was nodding vigorously behind him with a mischevious glint in his eye that only meant trouble.

Which meant Anna had only one choice.

"Sounds awesome. But what's a 'Warren'?"

Aster got a big smile on his face to rival Jack's, lifting up a large foot and saying smoothly,

"You're 'bout to find out, mate."

_Thump thump._

With two decisive 'thumps' of his foot, the ground beneath them fell away to a complete 90 degree drop. Anna's stomach found a home in her chest, pushing everything else up into her throat as she fell and fell and fell. She couldn't tell if that incredibly feminine scream was her or North, but she couldn't remember being able to un-glue her jaw until the drop began to turn, now sending them all tumbling along over one another. She caught a glimpse of Jack, then a dirt ceiling, then Tooth, and then a foot that could have been Jack's or North's, everything was so blurred.

The entire time, Anna could hear the rhythmic beating of Aster's feet as he bounded along ahead of them. And she swore that if she ever caught up to him, she would take one of those feet, buy a car, and hang it in the windshield. But, after what seemed like hours, Anna finally caught the quickest glimpse of sunlight before they tumbled out uncerimoniously into a dewy, warm grass. Finally on level ground, Anna rolled to a stop and put her hands up under her, pushing herself up and about to curse Aster to a new plane of existence.

And then she saw what was around her.

Aster stood stalk-still, his fur on-end and his body stiff.

This couldn't be the Warren.

"What happened?"Tooth asked softly, everyone looking up to see a shriveled mass of Earth. The grass was dead and crunched beneath Anna's feet, the trees were almost black or toppled over, no leaves to be seen. What was worse, there were shattered egg shells littering the ground, dried paint cracking on the dusty dirt. The sky was covered in angry-looking grey clouds, rolling and rumbling above.

The air was almost hard to breathe in, thick and scratchy and permiated with a sickening sense of death. It was like a toxin leaked from what Anna assumed had once been beautiful, seeping it into the air around them and making her feel sick. She looked quickly to North, who was looking around with a muted sense of dread. Only Jack looked back at her, both sharing worried glances. He reached out and took her arm in his hand, lightly walking with her along the path.

Aster was up ahead, Tooth fluttering down next to him and trying to speak, but it didn't look like he was responding. Instead, he walked numbly, his shoulders down and a heavy weight over his entire body. Anna couldn't see his face, only see him looking to his sides, ears down and looking pained at every tree and egg and paint spot.

"What happened here?"Jack whispered to her, Sandy catching up to the two of them. Anna didn't want to say it, she really didn't. She bit her lip and knew this had to be her fault. Had she just told North, maybe precautions could have been taken, maybe things would have ended up better, maybe...

"Pitch. It had to be him. He has to know I'm here now."Anna whispered, the words hurting as they wretched from her throat. Sandy tapped the side of her head and she looked over, the little man with a reassuring look and little signs over his head.

"Sandy says it isn't your fault. And something about bananas. Oh! No, it isn't your fault and we couldn't have known anyway." Anna wanted to smile back, to say she was thankful, but all she could manage was a stiff nod.

"But Pitch wouldn't attack here if-"

"He would, if he's as strong now as we think he is."North whispered from above them. No one spoke at a normal level, fearing that anything louder would shatter the already-fragile surroundings. "Pitch would do the same, possibly worse. Now, though, he will target you. Which means we cannot leave you."

"You're all too nice."Anna muttered.

"It's kind of our thing."North answered, following Aster over a hill and looking down into a valley of vast, dead, shriveled grass, on the other end of which seemed to be a dried river coated in blues and yellows peeling on the sides. It was horrible. To all sides, as far as the eye could see, everything was gone. Anna hadn't ever even seen what it had looked like before, but she'd heard stories and seen the delicate way Aster would paint eggs when he thought no one was looking, pulling one out of the belt around his chest and working on intricate details. And then this, all of this, dead and gone.

When Aster fell to his knees, Jack let go of Anna's arm and ran forward, North and Sandy following him. They crowded Aster, Jack's hand on his back as the Pooka hunched over and buried his face in his paws, everyone whispering reassurance to him. Anna stood away, a pain in her chest, looking down to see the dirt kicked up at her feet. She imagined Pitch there, sucking the life out of everything, nightmares and fearlings ripping and tearing and oozing into the very foundation of the Warren.

All while she slept, all while she tried to tell North her purpose for being there in the first place. That Pitch was using her, that he would do something to retaliate. Something like this. Those fleeting moments of peace were beginning to wear her down, giving her hope only to be shattered like this. EVerything she did was toxic. Everything was wrong. She killed everything around her-

Suddenly an idea hit her.

Her eyes widened and she looked around again, heart pounding and thousands of doubts immediately flooding her head. But she pushed past it, she still wondered. It had been so long that she wondered if she could ever even do this again, fearing she'd spent too long in the dark, too long destroying. She didn't know if she could create again. She looked up to Aster, still sitting hunched-over, Jack and the others around him comforting him. The man who had done everything he could to start to apologize, to try and make up for what he'd done.

Anna didn't want to prove him wrong.

She took a few steps back, looking around and holding her hands slightly away from her body. She expected nothing when she tried to awaken an old warmth in her chest, and so was shocked when a tingling began at her palms and spread to her hands. The warmth that she was once used to now felt like a wildfire, almost painful in the intensity, but it was there. It was still there, roaring to life and spreading through veins and into bone and flesh. Her eyes closed, but it was like she was still aware of everything around her.

This was so much different than death. There was no chill or darkness or strife. No strings to pull. Only a warmth, only a fire burning inside that leaked through her presence into the Earth around her. She could feel it all, too. Just like she always had. The life igniting around her, bleeding across her hands and into the air, which moved slightly as if ventilating away all the death that thickened it. She felt life, memories, joy, everything that came with existing suddenly lifting from the ground to the infinite sky above.

It felt like home. It felt like safety. It felt like comfort and love and peace. It felt right. The kind of right that can't be taken away, no matter how terrible things would get.

The only thing that brought Anna back to reality was North's voice. He said something she couldn't discern, and prompted Anna to opening her eyes. When she did, she had to blink away the harsh light that suddenly poured down from the deep blue sky, the Sun showing itself as the clouds were receeding into an unseen horizon. When she got her sight back, Anna looked at what she had done.

The Warren was beautiful now restored to its full potential.

Grass grew almost everywhere, thick and green and tall. The paths they stood on were made of rich, compacted dirt that looked as healthy as Anna had ever seen anything. The trees stood like soldiers, branches fanning out and leaves all sorts of vibrant colors, swirrled vines hanging from spots on the trees and almost reaching the ground. A breeze blew by, light and airy, and rustled up the leaves that sent a cascade of blues and yellows and pinks.

And, near their feet, little eggs with tiny legs scuttered up the hill by the dozen.

"...Okay, that's weird."Anna deadpanned, blinking as they all swarmed Aster, who had stood up and looked on in amazement. He looked down suddenly as the eggs jumped on his feet, swooping to a crouch and holding out his arms for them to jump and perch on. Almost in disbelief, he held them close to him, looking down and blinking. Below them, with a loud rushing sound that got everyone's attention, the river suddenly filled with a violent rushing of what looked like colored water, but they all knew better.

The paint for eggs rushed back in, filling the trench with a beautiful marble-effect of colors. And just like that, it was complete. Everything almost fit back together, like the natural flow of things found its place and kept going. As if this was how it had always been, uninterrupted. Anna couldn't believe it had been her that brought it back.

Aster turned, looking back at her with wide eyes and a mouth slightly ajar. Slowly, and never leaving her eyes, he crouched and the eggs hopped off, tumbling over the other to get to the river. When he stood, Anna had a flash of a moment where she was afraid. Of what, she didn't know. But she was afraid.

"You did this."It wasn't a question, and therefore Anna could give no answer. She could just stand there with her hands against her thighs and a fear in her chest. And then, like a miracle, Aster smiled.

She remembered that smile from back with Jamie and Sophie, bright eyes and relaxed shoulders. It was a lovely smile, and this time it was aimed at her. He was happy, because of her. Anna could scarcely remember the last time that had happened. That she'd made someone happy.

"Well crikey, sheila, guess you're more than we bargained for."He said it in a jovial way, in a teasing kind of way. And Anna breathed out heavily.

"Yeah?"Her voice was so shakey and so awkward that they all had to laugh at it, Jack swooping up and wrapping her in a tight, bone-crunching hug.

"I knew you could do it."He whispered in her ear, making her smile and squeeze him back before he took a few steps back. Tooth fluttered up to her as Jack sped to Aster, poking him and nodding down the hill.

"That was wonderful. Quite a gift that the Man in the Moon gave you."She complimented, nudging Anna.

"I guess...the flipside isn't so pretty."Anna reasoned, still smiling, still walking on air. Tooth shrugged and put and elbow on Anna's shoulder, close and intimate, saying,

"Maybe not. But, if you use it right, it could make room for beautiful things instead of destroying them." Anna blinked, watching as Aster, Jack, and Sandy all took off in a race against the other.

"...I honestly never thought of that." Tooth laughed and lifted off, giving Anna a warm smile.

"Let's go catch the boys before they do something-" She was cut off by a shout and a splash, cringing and smiling, "-stupid."She laughed and turned, taking off down the hill and curving with the turn. Anna was about to follow her, taking a step forward when North's arm came out of nowhere and wrapped itself around her shoulders, pulling her to him.

"Ah-ha! There's my Anna! I knew she was there, deep in your little bluebird eyes!"He exclaimed, beaming down at her as if he actually did see Anna from before. Which made her wonder, as she leaned against him, if maybe, somehow, she was.

"How was this not your fault?"Anna teased as Jack sat, arms and legs crossed and pouting. His once snow-white hair was now a kind of pastel yellow and blue, pink smeared across his jacket and face. He pointed to Aster, who was much better off having known ways to remove the paint(which he did not divulge with the others) and shouted,

"He shoved me in! It was paint! I could get lead poisoning!"Jack exclaimed, and Anna and Aster rolled their eyes at the other. The sun was setting, giving everything a soft darkness about it, and North had tuckered himself out enough to know it was time to go back. His eyes were heavy and he leaned on one of the swords, looking like an old man who stayed up far too late.

"C'mon, you'll clean up at the Workshop Snowflake." She held a hand out to him, which seemed to be mistake #1 of that evening. The mischevious glint flinted across his eyes and he grabbed her arm, pulling himself up and her to him, once again wrapping her in a hug.

Except this time, he was smearing paint on her body and shoulder.

"Jack! You askhdang!" Her mouth was covered as he rubbed his hair in her face, pushing him away and caught between laughing and strangling him, feeling the paint smeared across her face. Jack had no such qualms about laughing, almost doubling over and pointing at her.

"Aww! L-look at the scary spirit! Isn't she so menecing and angsty?" Jack laughed through speaking, Anna about to tackle him when Aster caught the back of Jack's hoodie and North the back of Anna's, both of them blue-in-the-face as they restrained their own laughter.

"It's time for bed now, we all had fun day. Time to sleep, then show Pitch how he cannot keep us down for long. Not with Anna here now."North announced confidently, and Anna would have been flattered had she not been covered in paint and glaring playfully at Jack. North sheathed the sword, still holding Anna, and threw the snowglobe.

As they entered and crossed the portal, Aster asked,

"Sheila, if you can bring things back like that, how good are you at fixin', say, crook paint jobs-"

They were in the Workshop.

Or, more accurately, what appeared to have been the Workshop.

Anna was dropped, and a silence filled the space. No, she thought, _nononononono._ She couldn't fix this. She couldn't...this was...

"Oh _dear_, Anna, it looks like you've made a mess...again."


	10. What Different Things Could Happen

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

The entirety of the bottom floor, from what Anna could see, was destroyed. It was just a heap of toy parts and springs and hammers and shattered lights. Yetis lay groaning in certain places, Elves struggling to pull themselves out of a wreckage. The wall behind the overlook had three deep gashes in it, cutting violently and diagnally across the wall. Anna could see all of this as she stood there, looking at all of it, as Pitch spoke to her. The others moved quickly forward, spinning around and poised to attack.

But Pitch wouldn't attack.

She knew him better than that.

"Oh my, angry are we? Now, since I'm a kind-hearted soul, I'm going to give all of you some advice: You should be facing the other way." His voice told Anna that he knew exactly what he was doing. Her muscles tightened and her hands clenched, staring forward at nothing. She couldn't move, it hurt too much. It hurt because she was so close, and she had done almost everything right this time. And still, still, she fell short.

"What're you talking about, Pitch? Anna's on our side now! You can't turn us against her!"Aster defended, and Anna closed her eyes a moment.

"...Oh, is that what she told you?" _No, no, no, STOP IT._ "Ha! I suppose my darling little Anastasia forgot to tell you that if there's one thing she's best at, it's putting on a good face. Isn't that right, dear? Show me that pretty face. No? Well, that's just fine, then, I think I tell this story better anyway."

"What is your nonesense!"North shouted, and she heard him step forward. There was a fluttering sound, and then Pitch was behind her. She knew he was there, could feel him in every cell of her body. They spent centuries in the other's air space, knowing their habits and quirks. They'd enfused in themselves almost an essence of the other, and for Anna that meant never being surprised by what Pitch would do for himself. It also meant that Pitch knew, without a shadow of a doubt, every way to manipulate her.

"She came back here after your little spat because I told her to. She's here distracting you, gathering information that I could use. And I must say, for that first part, she did a wonderful job." His hand grazed her shoulder, and something inside of Anna snapped. She knew why he was doing this. He was angry. He was hurt. He practiced such strict control over everything, and he was starting to lose control of her. He was doing this out of anger. Of fear. And she would not bear the brunt of it any longer.

Screaming, she whipped around slammed a hand around in front of her, passing through shadow as he dissapeared and reappeared a foot from her, Anna seething and feeling a dangerous tingling in her palms. Pitch raised a finger, eyes calm though he knew what was happening to her. That was another thing, one other thing, that they both had learned. It was curious, and neither would ever voice it out loud, but they both knew: Anna would never kill Pitch Black.

"Now, now, not in front of the Guardians. You wouldn't want them to think you're as awful as you think you are." His tone was calm and cynical, but his eyes told a different story. She knew them, cenimeter for centimeter, and saw a raging storm. He seemed smooth and confident, but there was an unheardof anger in his eyes, and anger that even Anna could scarcely understand. She had left, or tried to. She expected him to move on after awhile.

She never expected this kind of retaliation.

"Well, it seems I've done my job here. Anna, dear, do come see me when this is done, we have to get a move on." Pitch cast her one last, deadly look, and then shadows swarmed up from the floor and swallowed him hole, leaving only an empty space. Now, nothing blocked Anna from the looks on the faces of the Guardians.

Wildly, part of her thought they wouldn't believe him. Part of her hoped that this would be like just a few hours ago with the Warren.

But this wasn't the Warren. This was the Workshop.

And this time, Pitch had been here.

Aster looked conflicted, a hurt look to her and then the ground, as if he couldn't believe he'd been proven right. As if he didn't want to be proven right. Tooth had her hands clenched to her chest, blinking her big violet eyes and scrutinizing her. Sandy gazed slowly over the railing at the damage, and then to Anna, a pain in her chest that she couldn't breathe through. And then Jack. Jack, who looked like he still wanted to fight for her, but something was holding him back. He looked to her for an explination, anything to give him a fighting stance for her. To give him a reason not to feel betrayed.

And she couldn't give him one.

North was the worst by far. North wouldn't look at her.

"North..."She tried, a lump of pain in her throat. She could feel it all slipping away. "...North, I tried to tell you, I was going to. I mean, I wasn't going to do what Pitch said, I just came back and you accepted me so I..."

"So if we hadn't accepted you...?"Tooth asked, her voice pained and hurt. Anna's eyes went wide and she shook her head.

"No, not like that! I mean if you hadn't I wouldn't have stayed, I was never going to turn you over to him! I didn't know that any of this was going to happen, there was no way for me to." She didn't know why she defended herself, knowing that by the looks on their faces there was nothing left she could say. Pitch had done it. He'd done that last little thing. But she tried to hold on, she didn't want it to end. Not like this, not because of him.

"North."She turned to him, and he still wouldn't look at her. Even before, even when she'd been awful to him, he'd always looked her in the eye. Now he wasn't. He couldn't even look at her. "North, please."She tried to stop her voice from cracking, tried to keep some sense of togetherness. But she couldn't, because everything was unraveling and she couldn't seem to put things back again.

Finally, after a painful amount of time, North looked up at her.

And she wished he hadn't.

There in his eyes was everything she ever told herself that he felt. Had it been there before or just happened, it was there now. That betrayal, that pain, that aching sadness that someone he had loved so much had done something like this. And she knew in that moment that North didn't believe her. She'd gone to the Warren with them, she'd distracted them, and they came back to this. She really couldn't blame them. But dear MiM, did it hurt. Her breath caught in her throat as North looked at her with big, broken eyes.

"Anna...I think you should go."

_Go._

In that moment, Anna forgot that she'd ever known him. She forgot that she'd ever been close to a second chance at life. She forgot the smiles and the Warren and the tiny toy she'd been given and Jack and promises. Anna forgot that any of that had happened, because it very well might not have. Because here she was not just at square one, but far behind that. Because this time it wasn't her leaving.

It was North asking her to leave.

No words could possibly have done anything, and she couldn't speak all the same. So Anastasia did what she always did best. She sucked in a breath, took a step backwards, and turned away. And just like that, she sprinted.

Anastasia left, running and running, not realizing where she was until there was too much snow and it caught her foot. She fell forward, knees sinking into the snow beneath her and chilling her to the bone. She couldn't see that she was miles from the Workshop, or that it was snowing suddenly, or that she wasn't alone out there. Because all she could see were the insides of her eyelids as tears defiantly squeezed out and rolled over her flushed face, arms wrapped around her and hands clutching, leaning forward in a way that almost helped take an edge off the pain. Almost.

She had been so close, and she had ruined it. Everything, everything she did was awful. She couldn't do anything right, she couldn't do anything she knew she should. She walked in on lives and destroyed them, no matter how hard she tried not to, no matter how many times she tried to put things right. She couldn't. And this time, she knew she had nowhere to go back to. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that North no longer wanted her back. And this was it.

Pitch looked down at Anna, standing a small distance away, and refused to admit guilt. But just because he refused did not mean that it did not happen, that it creeped along his gut and whispered into his ear. He had done what he had to do for his benefit, and knew that if he ever lost her he would lose more than a companion. He would lose his only key to beating the Guardians into the shadows as they had done to him. So he had used her and fought back whatever he experianced because of that, and he did it all with a smile.

But that did not mean that he did not feel for her.

In fact, if there ever was anyone he did feel for, it was Anna. She knew too much about him, and he of her, to not have something inside of him trying to tear at his blackened soul for what he had done. So now, Pitch Black was not smiling. In fact, knowing she could not see him hunched over in the snow as she was, his face took on a look of pity and pain. Because he knew what she was going through. Not because he had put her through it, but because he, too, had felt it once.

He knew that many things could be said about him. That he was awful and cruel. And those were true, what he had done he would allow himself no forgiveness, and someday he could come to terms with that. But there was another part, a part no one else could see, that did things to keep her whole. That did what it could to ensure that this girl did not shatter. He took her in on purpose, but had never planned on keeping her as long. His initial plan was a few hundred years, and then that part of him kept pushing off kicking her out. All the way until he was doing anything to make her stay.

He did this because he knew the world wouldn't accept her, and he knew that pain like a second skin. Pitch Black still believed that she was a far better person than he would ever be. He had no delusions of himself, and knew that he had just a few about Anna. She was broken and scared, yes, but she had something else. Something precious and he had tried to keep safe while manipulating her.

And he knew someday that had to end, that push would come to shove and he would do what he had to.

But something troubled him, something that made his lip curl and chest tighten, something that churned in his gut. He had spent more lifetimes than he could count trying to claw his way from the shadows and drive the Guardians into them. And he had to use Anna to do that.

But for the briefest moment, for the quickest of seconds, Pitch no longer wanted to do that.

It stung him, and when it passed he felt a bit disoriented. But it had passed, leaving only small remenants, and all that was left was a pain he tried to smother. When that didn't work, he sighed and knelt, placing a gentle hand on her back. Here she was, just like him. He only hoped she wouldn't end up this cynical and alone. Because yes, he would still have her and not be really alone. But after this, she would not be the same Anna as before. He knew he'd lost her, finally.

And he would soldier on through that, only giving time in afterthought to realize what kind of pain that put him through.

"Come now, dear. Let's go home."

Home.

He'd never called it that before.

He almost cringed when she paused and then began to nod. She didn't even put up a fight. She didn't even speak. She just gave a resigned nod and ran a sleeve across her face. This wasn't the Anna he'd known, and for a moment he wondered exactly how much damage he'd really done. But that had to be dismissed, this was how it had to happen. He just wished it wasn't.

And so he slid his hand along her back and gave her a long look, shadows reaching up from the ground and enveloping them, pulling them down and towards a different place, a familiar place, a darker place.

_-Four Centuries Ago-_

She still wasn't sleeping, and it was still bothering him. He'd tried to ignore it, telling himself that he didn't sleep either. And yet for some reason, her not sleeping bothered him beyond all measure. His hands twitched as he read over a large, tattered paper in hopes of discerning some kind of weakness in the Guardians, a kill-switch that MiM could have installed. She walked, he knew, in another room. Slowly, with even and paused steps, he felt her walking. And it was killing him.

Finally he slammed his hands on the table with enough force to make the shadows around him flinch back, teeth grinding and a headache piercing his skull. Why, why on Earth it bothered him this much, he would never know.

"This is ridiculous!"He shouted to no one, standing up and storming across the room and straight through a wall. He came out on the other side of a room a ways away, coming face-to-face with Anna as she turned to continue pacing. She jumped and cursed, flailing backwards with as much grace as a newborn giraffe. Almost boredly, Pitch reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her upright before she could fall.

She panted a moment, then exclaimed,

"What the hell is wrong with you?! Phasing through walls like some sort of freaky-"

"Shadow?"He offered deadpan. She paused, blinked, and then shrugged in acceptance. "Now, you're going to tell me why you insist on staying awake at these ridiculous hours of the night." Pitch continued, glaring and folding his hands behind him a bit awkwardly. Anna looked up at him, furrowing her brow and tilting her head to the side.

"I wasn't aware that this cave of literal and embodied darkness and evil had a bed time set up." Pitch faultered a moment, mouth open to say something but stopping himself short, not sure yet how to respond to her quips. "Besides, you're up."

"_I_ don't need sleep."He retorted, and Anna shrugged, looking at the far wall.

"Maybe I don't either."

"Aw, what a quaint idea, except that you and I are two completely different things."He corrected, leaning towards her.

"What do you mean?" She looked confused, and he noticed that her hands were slowly moving away from her legs. Normally, they were plastered there. Subconcious, maybe, he thought.

"You,"He poked her shoulder, moving past her into the room, "are one of MiM's little concoctions. I take offense to your assumption that I am anything of the like."He was occupied as he spoke, looking around the room that she had been afforded. It had a bed against the right wall, a book shelf of some novels he'd forgotten about on the wall straight ahead. At the moment, it was bare. She hadn't had anything to bring with her.

"So what are you? You aren't human, I know that." Her question caught him off guard with half his mind elsewhere. He would learn very quickly that this was no way to speak with Anna, that every bit of him had to be focused on her and her words, or else she'd slip something tricky in there. Unfortunately, he had not yet learned this.

"Well, I suppose I was once a man, but I'm not much of that now am I? At least, not the man I _was_."

"You were a person?" He flinched, eyes wide and heart stopping. He hadn't just...? But he had. He'd let that little bit slip, and he could feel her eyes on him. He cursed loudly in his own mind, screwing up his face and letting out a breath. Then a strange feeling overtook him, and he looked at the stacks and stacks of books on the shelf before him.

"Is that so hard to believe?"He asked, trying to sound nonchalant. There was a quick silence, and then,

"What happened?" He rolled his eyes and moved around to face her, leveling his best glare. Strangly, he began to notice recently, she did not shrink back from him. Instead, she crossed her arms and continued to look on with a passive expression.

"As if I would ever tell you."He dismissed her with a wave of his hand, and she tapped her foot. A light flickered on in her eyes, a look he did not like, and she offered a cocky smile.

"You don't like me pacing, right?"

"I don't like where this is going."

"Tell about when you weren't you."She offered, "And then I'll go to bed."

Pitch wrinkled his nose at her, the shadows around him thickening, ready to take him somewhere else, anywhere else. He was not having this conversation, not even with this child that knew more of what it was like to be him than anything else in this world.

"I don't tell bedtime stories, dear, my most humble apologies."He sneered, and she shrugged.

"Then I hope you like the sound of pacing through the night."

Pitch stopped and began to reconsider. He gave her a measured look, raising his head and looking down on her. And he saw it in her eyes, the fact that she wanted to know more about him not because she was scared of him, but because she was curious. Curiosity, Pitch had learned, often went hand-in-hand with fear. But there was not fear in her. Only questions.

He had taken her in because he saw that same look in her eyes that he had once had. Before he embraced it, before it became truly a part of him, he could remember that kind of fear. He could remember that look of helplessness. He remembered being that alone. And never, in centuries, had he ever imagined anyone would know what that was like...until her, of course. And he knew this could backfire, he knew he might someday regret it.

But nothing inside of him told him that this would be an awful idea. He did know her story. Maybe, just for her, someone else ought to know his.

"...Fine."He spat out, and she visibly relaxed, jumping onto the bed and pressing her back against the wall, crossing her legs. Refusing to sit on a bed like a teenage girl, Pitch instead reached out a hand and the chair of a desk came to him, slightly pushing it forward and walking around to sit in it. He crossed his legs, folding his hands in close to him and keeping a formal scoul on his face. No sense in making her think he looked forward to this.

She waited expectantly, legs crossed and hands in her lap. And for a moment, Pitch paused. He paused because he knew this was the first time he would speak it aloud. He paused, because looking at her, he wasn't entirely afraid of doing that.

"...I was a man once. And my name was Kozmotis Pitchiner."

_-A Cave Underground-_

Anna ran a hand along the neck of a nightmare, the creature closing its eyes for a moment before hoofing the ground and dissapearing. Pitch watched her as he layed out his plan, mind not entirely on the task at hand. He looked over to her for the tenth time that minute, saw her eyes wandering the cave, saw thoughts streaming through her eyes. He checked her fear.

Same as it had been for days. She was afraid that something terrible would happen to the Guardians. She was afraid that MiM was watching.

Pitch looked away from her, trying to focus as he stepped up to the Globe and surpressed that ounce of guilt that wouldn't leave him. He knew what he wanted to do, and everything was almost in place, all he needed was her now. Which was why he called her in. But he'd avoided speaking to her for a few minutes, instead busying himself with menial things until he knew it looked ridiculous. Finally, he rounded around the Globe and stood in front of Anna, reaching out and taking her hand.

"My dear, everything's almost set. I just need your special little touch." He said, and as he did the five shadows lifted up from the ground, standing in columns like soldiers awaiting orders, like statues awaiting molding. Anna looked over, and sucked in a breath.

"What do you want me to do with these?"She asked, and Pitch led her to them, lifting her hand to the first and letting it go, letting it hang there in the air. He stepped back, waiting for it, waiting for the sweet sensation of victory.

"I want you to bring these to life. Make just five more, that's all I ask of you. Just five more, and then you wait here until everything's over. You won't even have to see it. And in the end, the world will be a place for us again, everything will be okay. You just have one last thing to do." He motioned to the shadows, and recognition flickered in Anna's eyes. This was a trepidatious kind of moment, and he knew that if she refused that he really couldn't do anything more to persuade her.

She knew what these were. His entire life now balanced on her decision.

"These are their fears." She said quietly.

"Yes,"Pitch explained, "I got them in that day where you were..." He stopped, surprising himself, trying to pick back up again, "In that day when you were with the children. The shadows had a field day on the Guardians, it was wonderful." His voice sounded a bit flat to him, and he didn't know why everything didn't feel as wonderful as he had imagined. Why that guilt would not leave.

Anna paused a moment, and then something inside of him relaxed when she closed her eyes and lifted her other hand. He would never cease to be amazed by her and what she could do, watching with his own eyes as she brought life to something. He almost missed the fearlings solidifying, he was paying so much attention to her. Seeing her jaw tighten, watching her breathing deepen. He'd seen her do this a thousand times before. Each time was spectacular.

She stepped back quickly when the fearlings stood there, stretching elongated back and splitting open jagged smiles on featureless faces. Pitch clapped his hands together and they dissapeared, exhaling.

"Wonderful, just wonderful. Isn't this so much easier now?"He asked her, and he knew what he was doing. He knew exactly why he asked her, he knew why he stepped before her to make sure she had to answer him. Pitch Black was egging her on, he wanted her to say something to him to rid him of this guilt. He wanted to see her snap. He wanted her to hate him. Because doing any of this to someone who didn't hate him...even Pitch Black couldn't take something like that.

She looked away from him and said quietly,

"Let me go."

"Oh, but you don't want to go dear. This is the only place you can call home now, isn't it?"

"Pitch-"

"They won't take you back, you can go ahead and make them try. It won't end up pretty."

"Pi-"

"They'll shun you and lock you up and shove you down in some pit, like you're trash to throw away that no longer exists once they can't see you! It's awful, and unfair, and you're only safe-"

"Pitch!" She snapped, but that was as loud as her voice got. As hopeful as it got him, her voice was quiet next and her eyes held a certain kind of look in them. A soft look. Understanding. And he wanted to cringe away from it. "You're not going to get me to get angry at you."

"_Why?_" He knew it sounded pathetic, his hands clenching and jaw tight, Anna looking up at him like she knew, like she knew everything going on inside of him. The worst part was that she probably did. She paused, then shook her head and began stepping backwards.

"Because I know too much about you." She left, walking to a door and exiting through it. When it closed, the hollow echo resounded until Pitch snapped his fingers, silencing the room. His breath came slow, turning and walking stiffly to the Globe. He pressed his hand to the cold surface, thinking of centuries spent doing terrible things to her. She could have been a good and happy person, but she wasn't meant for that. She was too much like him, and too different all the same.

And she should despise him. But she didn't.

"She doesn't..." He paused, not sure what he wanted to say to himself. Hate him? Of course she did. She had to, for everything he'd done to her. She was lying, she was avoiding the truth because...because of what? What reasons did she have for lying to him? What benefit could that possibly bring to her? Tell him she hated him, wouldn't that be stating the obvious? But she didn't say that. He thought of that look in her eyes, of how she looked over all the years. How she sat next to him, how she would walk into his rooms without knocking, how she always came back, how she never even once tried to kill him. After everything he'd done.

His fingers slid along the surface of his hollow Globe, lights flickering strong beneath his fingers. All those children, and...

And then it hit him, sending him stumbling back from the lights, eyes wide and disbelieving. For it wasn't that she _didn't_, it was that she _did_. He knew, in his very soul. It struck a chord and he looked, stunned in silence at the globe. Suddenly it was so clear, and he wanted to scrub it all away, rake at it with his nails until he could forget it, forget her. But he couldn't, and the realization still echoed in his mind.

She believed in him.

Pitch grabbed at his chest and screwed up his face into a grimace. No. _No_. He wouldn't fall for something so foolish, so_petty_. He was the Nightmare King. No one believed in him, only feared. And he believed that for a time. For a half second. Because he knew that, in all the time he'd known her, she'd never once looked upon him with an ounce of fear. Never. And he should have seen it sooner. Before this, before it had to be done.

Because there was no going back on this now. Pitch didn't know what he would have done had he found this out before, had he found out sooner. Had he not spent so much time fooling himself. And he would never know, not really, only in passing thoughts and times of his deepest sorrow. Because he knew what he had to do now. And he could never take any of it back.


	11. When A Battleground Was A Crossroads

_-Thank you all for being so patient. I'll be aiming for about one chapter a week until the end of this work. Enjoy!-_

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

On the outside, it looked like the Workshop had been healed. The yetis worked faster than anyone could have imagined, and with the other Guardians helping, the destruction looked like it was just a bad dream. But it wasn't. Inside, things were still broken.

North sat and looked down at his hands, these hands that had held her and smoothed her hair and wiped away tears. These hands that had pleaded with her, these hands that had taught her to read and write and build small toy trains. These hands that had thrown her out.

These hands that betrayed her.

He clenched them closed, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing out heavily. She was gone now, and there was a space so expansive that North thought it would never close. Because yes, she was gone now, and he had thrown her out this time. Now, she had no doubts that he wanted her gone, he had said it to her face. All of those fears, all of that pain he saw in her eyes, he had made it real. In a moment of hurt, when Pitch knew he had found a soft spot, Pitch had jabbed and scrubbed until that wound was raw.

And now she was back with him. Everything she could have had, all that she could have done, and it was gone now. North felt an ache that went on and on in his chest.

Somewhere farther away from him, Jack stood in the doorway, holding something small in his hands. Quietly, and cautiously so as not to startle him, he knocked on the door with his staff. North looked up, almost surprised that someone else lived there except him. Jack felt awkward, knowing what North was going through. He himself was conflicted. On one hand, he didn't believe Pitch. He had seen Anna, he knew how she was and that look in her eyes. He knew that something along those lines might have happened, but not how Pitch had described them, and certainly not within Anna's power.

And on the other...on the other, he was afraid. Because he knew how unstable Anna was when it came to sides to take. She was terrified, he could see, that she didn't belong anywhere. And he, of all people, knew about that. She stepped lightly, fearfully, thinking that at any moment something could go wrong and it would all fall down. And then it did.

Jack didn't forgive North for that. But he understood.

"Hey there, just wanted to, you know, bring you this. Looked really tiny, I don't know if it's important or not." Jack said, really using it as an excuse to speak to North, to make sure he was okay. Jack rarely got many opportunities to speak with North, and so was approaching this delicately. He held out the tiny, golden telescope in his hand and North looked at it like it was a lost treasure, a kind of bittersweet look on his face.

"Es Anna's gift, I gave it to her..."North muttered, and Jack almost winced. Of course, the one random thing he picks up has a ridiculous amount of significance.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know."Jack tried to recover, handing it to North who looked at it with a heavy look that Jack had never seen before. He didn't like it. He didn't like North not jolly and boisterous and loud. He didn't like the quiet. So, when North seemed done looking over the toy(or when he couldn't bear to look at it any longer) he pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, resting his chin on one arm, the other holding the staff.

"Jack?"North asked, looking confused. Jack sucked in a breath.

"So, uh, I think we should talk. About...you know. What happened." North seemed caught off-guard, but he didn't protest. Jack took that as a greenlight to go ahead and speak. "I understand why you did what you did. I mean, there was a lot of evidence piled against her, and everything was destroyed. None of us were in our right mind. I don't think I even realized what had happened until it did."

"Jack, you do not need to comfort me."North said kindly, raising a hand.

"I'm not trying to." North raised his brows, and Jack went on, "What you did was...wrong. And I know you know that, but...Anna's out there somewhere. And she's scared, and she thinks that all of her worst fears just came true. We have to prove to her that they didn't...because they didn't, right? She belongs here?"

"Of course she does."North whispered earnestly, and Jack smiled at his small victory. He sat back, saying then,

"Well, sitting around here isn't going to do anything. We've looked for her before. We won't give up now. Eventually, Pitch is gonna find us, but we'll be ready, and we'll get Anna back. But we can't just mope around here, you know? That's not how this is gonna work. She needs us, it's time we showed her that we need her, too. She fit in. It was weird, but she...filled this space that we didn't know was there."

North, for the first time in a long time, smiled softly. It brought a light to Jack, made him sit straighter and smile wider. He'd done something right, he'd gotten through. This hadn't crashed and burned.

"Very well put, Jack. You should be poet!" He joked lightly, and Jack would have reached forward and punched him playfully, but his hand stopped mid-way.

Outside the door, there was a scream.

And then the sound of hooves on wood and tile.

Jack looked to North, whose eyes were just as wide.

"Not yet."Jack muttered in dread, both of them bolting to their feet and throwing open the door. Not yet, not yet, they weren't _ready. _He repeated this in his head over and over and over again until they reached the overlook, seeing nightmares hoofing the ground, looking them right in the eye. There were only three of them, though, and the moment North and Jack came into view they reared up and dissolved into shadowy forms of sand, arching up into the air and ribboning out of the hole in the roof of the Workshop.

Tooth shot over to them, Aster right behind her, and Sandy making frantic signs. He wanted them to look outside. And so, they did. All of them collectively ran down the stairs, hearts pounding and yetis scrambling to get anything to defend the Workshop with, the five Guardians bursting through the door as one unit and bounding out into the snow. And it was there that they stopped and looked ahead at what lay in wait for them.

"Hello, Guardians,"Pitch greeted icily, smile crooked on one side of his face, "I do hope we aren't interrupting anything."

Behind him, hundreds of nightmares dotted the snow, thousands of coal-red eyes. It was an army, hiding the white blanket of snow under jagged black hides and seeping, black-sand manes. There were too many, and each Guardian knew individually that there was no way out of this. They'd taken on armies before. This was nothing like that.

North looked on, searching, but she wasn't there. Pitch must have seen him looking, because his smile only broadened and he said in a silky, malicious tone,

"I'm afraid she opted out of the festivities tonight. Not her style to watch the fallout, really. She preferred a more...backstage kind of lifestyle. Not really belonging in the big leauges. But, you know that already, don't you?"

And it bit at North that he was right. It bit at him that Anna wasn't there. But, more than anything, it almost killed him that he would never see her again. He would fight as hard as he could, but he saw a loosing battle when he saw one. Right then and there, North almost crumbled.

He knew what his last words to her had been. And he could never take those back. After everything, that couldn't have been how it ended. After all that fight and love and careful conection, that was how it ended. And it wasn't fair. North wanted to tell her he loved her. But she wasn't there, and he knew why.

The nightmares began to step forward.

_-A Frozen Lake in Burgess-_

She raked her hands through her hair and breathed heavily, gritting her teeth and trying to block out all of the images in her head. She wasn't there. She should have been there, and she wasn't, and she knew what was going to happen. No fairytale could give them a happy ending. There were too many, and if they survived the nightmares...

She let out a scream that no one would hear and clenched her hands into fists, in the middle of a lake with nothing to throw or hit. And then, as she did this, the clouds parted a bit above her, grey and slow. And when she looked up, panting and face flushed, she saw it. It was just a silver orb in the sky, but she saw him. She felt him. Finally, after so long, he was there. And he was too late.

"Why?"She asked quietly, teeth clenched and a lump in her throat. The moon looked down, but she swore, she swore she knew he was looking. Millions of miles away, she felt she was looking him in the eye. She hadn't spoken to him in centuries. Now, though, what else could she have done? Everything was gone now, everything was destroyed. Her life would lie in ashes around her.

What else did she have but to shout at the moon?

"Why me? Why did you do that to me? I didn't deserve to stay! That was careless, choosing me! What good can I do? What were you thinking? I hurt him, I hurt the greatest Guardian that's ever lived. Again and again, more than once, I broke his heart. And he always came back. And you let him. You let me hurt him and you let him come back. That isn't fair to him. He didn't do anything wrong." She blinked and tears broke free, rolling down her face and curving at her jaw. The moon did not look away from her this time.

"Everything I did, everything I went through...you never once came down from your castle to tell me what to do. You talk to North, you talk to the others...why not me? Why not me, when I was so destructive? Why did you let me go to Pitch, and why did you let us understand each other, and why did you let what happend to him happen? I fought so hard, and I fell so low, and you never once reached down to at least tell me how to stand back up." She was panting, the words falling out without stop. She turned away, and then back again, shouting as loud as she could,

"If you were going to keep me alive, _you should have told me why!_"

Anna panted, throat hurting and eyes stinging, furiously wiping at the tears on her face. She felt as pathetic as she knew she sounded. She knew it was all her fault. She knew she was the only one to blame. But she was so tired. She was tired of being lost and confused, she was tired of treading water in a grey area. She just wanted to know why. Why she did all of this. Why she was even there.

The tears wouldn't stop, no matter how hard she shut her eyes or wiped at her face. She breathed in shakily, and then whispered in a shaky breath,

"I just wanted him to be happy. I didn't want the rest of this."

"I know."

Anna jerked and slipped on the ice, falling hard on her elbow and flipping around, pushing herself back a bit. Her heart hurt in her chest from the shock, looking up at the voice that had spoken behind her out of the thinnest of air. Except there wasn't air there. There used to be, she'd known she was alone. But something was there now.

Some_one_ was there now.

A man stood there in a white suit, his hands folded behind his back. He stood tall, and his shoulders were broad, but that was all that there was menacing about him. His face was a bit round, and his eyes a bit small, and his head completely bald. He looked at her with an expression that struck her to the core, stilling her there. A sadness in his eyes, a compassion, a love, an empathy, so many feelings in two tiny, light blue eyes, all at once. It was too hard to take in, though the man looked simple enough.

There was nothing simple about him, though. His presence, everything around him, it all changed. It was invisible, but he made everything different. Everything seemed to know what he was. Even the world around Anna began to quiet down. And she knew the moment she saw him, though she'd never seen or heard of how he looked before, exactly who this man was.

"...MiM?"She asked quietly, arms shaking as she still sat on the ice, looking up at him. At his name, he offered a tiny smile.

"Anastasia. I believe it's time we talk." His voice was warm and had an almost etherial feeling to it, the consonants sounding strange and the vowels echoing. It was a hard voice to describe. "I know you have a lot to say."

"I think I just said most of it."Anna said in a quiet, shaky voice. She was sitting there before MiM, the man who had brought her to life. Through all her screaming and distress, she'd never actually expected him to show up. And here he was, on a frozen lake.

"Ah, yes. Well, that is true, but you see Anna I've known what you wanted to say for a long time. I understand your fears. At one time, they were also mine. I wondered why I never came down. When I saw you in pain, my child, in a darkness from which only you could ever possibly escape, I asked myself why I never helped you. But I know, as I knew then, why." He spoke quietly, and Anna was gradually no longer shaking. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, looking at the man that was about to give her all her answers.

She wasn't sure she wanted them anymore.

"Why? After everything I did, after all the mistakes I made, why would you make North hurt like that?"She asked, a pain deep in her chest. MiM shook his head, and his look was the softest she'd ever seen.

"It was never about him. He loved you whether I wanted him to or not, and when you love someone you will get hurt many times, often deeply. As deeply as you love them. I cannot fathom the love he has for you. But it was never about North, Anna. This was about you. I never once came down to help you, to take your hand, because I knew you could stand up on your own. Because that's why I kept you alive, my child. Because you could stand, because you could pull yourself out of the darkest of times. You do not even know the power of your own ability to continue to live. I'd never seen it before in anyone."

"So why let me kill things?"

"Because death is just as important as life. Without it, there would be no importance to life, and without life there would be no joy. You are a balance, Anastasia. You are special. You are important. And you lived because you deserved to." MiM folded his hands in front of him, and Shawna was quiet for a long time, thinking about what he said. Inside of her somewhere, something warm was trickling in, building up.

"Do you forgive me for what I did?"She asked. MiM smiled.

"I don't need to. You did what you had to do. And now, you must do that again." He answered, and Anna swallowed. She thought a lot about a lot of things. And it was that moment, right there on the bed of frozen ice, that Anna made her last decision. And it cemented her existence.

Slowly, ever slowly, she turned and began to stand on shaky legs. She almost fell, but caught herself and started again. Eventually, after awhile, she stood in front of MiM and took in a deep breath. She looked him in the eye.

"This won't be the last fight."

"No, but the end is coming."

"Will you be there for it?"

"After all this? I wouldn't miss it for the world, my child. You are about to begin living for the first time in centuries." His smile was genuine, and Anna felt something buzzing in her veins. She wouldn't know what it was until a long time later. MiM silently reached out a hand in offering, as if asking her one last question. Anna paused.

"I don't hate Pitch Black." She felt the need to say it, and MiM's hand didn't move.

"I know. That's why you have to do this." And he was right. She knew he was right. Somewhere deep down inside of her, she had always known that. Except right now, it was the only option. She gripped the white cloth around her neck in one hand, and MiM's warm palm in the other.

There was a flash of white, and then a battlefield of black.

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

Their little arms flailed, their heavy hearts weighing them down. Pitch had his hands folded behind his back, standing still and calm in the middle of this storm. He watched with what he thought was the best seat in the house, hearing the shouts of the Guardians and the shrieking war-cries of his nightmares. This was all seemingly almost too easy, and he was worried that he might not even get to use the best peice of this puzzle. He didn't want Anna to have down all of that work for nothing.

And then, like a crack of lightning, there was a sound like the snapping of a whip and loud, struggling cry. A flash of white splintered out across the battlefield, jagged and heading towards him like spears. Pitch smiled, almost relieved that this would at least be a bit of a challenge. He raised his hands up, arms tensed as a wave of shadows rose up in front of him, freezing over in a beautiful wave of icey darkness in the most literal sense. He hated to destroy it, but this structure hadn't worked so well the last time.

He clenched his hand into a fist and the shadows flexed, breaking free from the ice as if it were water that the shadows shed from their coats, the darkness swarming around him and spreading out over the ground. He caught a look of determination and the buzzing sensation of concentrated fear in the eyes of Jack Frost, right before the shadows rose back up and replaced the nightmares that had fallen. The Guardians paused, all of them stepping slowly back and standing in a group, as if any of that could do them good.

Pitch, not wanting to miss a moment of this, rose up on a torrent of shadows and felt a warm feeling spreading through his veins. It made him smile, breathing it in.

"Oh, I must say I'm dissapointed. It took almost more than this to defeat you last time, what's wrong now, Guardians? Are you...missing something?" He mocked softly, and saw a darkness come over their faces, but especially North. Especially, especially him. And for a moment, Pitch was able to bask in that. He was able to stand on the precipiece of victory, could taste it and feel it just moments away, time just a breath from showing him a world where he could live, a world that catered to him rather than grating against him like a weed. For a beautiful moment, that world was all he could see.

And when that moment ended, he felt something ripped violently from his hands.

"No, they aren't. Not anymore." A voice echoed so strongly through the throng of nightmares that Pitch almost didn't recognize it. He stumbled a bit, eyes wide and looking around himself. But the voice came from almost every direction, and so he didn't seen when they arrived in a beam of moonlight that shot through the clouds like an arrow, or see when they stepped out of it like some kind of action-movie heroes.

He only saw the moonlight fading, and what it left behind just before him. It made the sea of nightmares shy backwards, retreating behind him with angry cries and snorts. Pitch only saw when Anna stood there, suddenly as if out of the thinnest of air, and he would never forget the look on her face for as long as he lived. It was strong, stronger than he could have ever remembered. And in that strength, in that resolution of where she stood and why, he saw something else. And that, above everything that would happen, haunted him.

Because he saw a reluctance to do what she was about to do. Pitch saw pity.

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

She stood in the middle of a battlefield, the snow beneath her feet pockmarked with hooves and trenches. Areas were covered in splintered frost, and it took everything she had not to look back. It too all she had to look Pitch in the eye, knowing it was never going to be the same again. Knowing that the connection would never be able to go back together, and that she was the one severing it. And she knew she had to, she knew that this was what would ultimately bring them both peace, but there was a bittersweetness to it all.

It had been a good run, if not terrible.

"Anna..."Pitch breathed, and then looked to her side. His eyes widened and he stumbled, arm up already as if in defense. MiM stood still next to her, and a look of confusion, of hurt, of hatred all crossed Pitch's eyes. Anna kept breathing, Anna kept searching for those little strings to pull at. There were thousands of them, all attatching to her, all clinging to her like static. She felt them all even when Pitch couldn't tell. She couldn't feel his. Wouldn't.

"How..." And then it dawned on him. Fury overtook his features, teeth gritting and face darkening, looking from MiM to Anna in a way that hurt her more than he would ever know. "I see," He continued in a low, angry tone, "I see how this plays out, dear. After all this, after everything that I've shown you, after the life that I allowed you to live, this is how it ends? This is how you want it to be over? How you'll remember this? This, next to the Man in the Moon, is how you plan to end me?"

Anna was filled with the kind of sadness that you only feel, not the kind you could explain. And she shook her head. Those little strings were tugging on her now, and she felt them ready to snap.

"Not the end of you, Pitch. The end of this."

She snapped the little strings, and everything around them fell. It was like a massive black wave had suddenly gone docile, barely a snicker passed through before all of the nightmares, thousands and thousands, had fallen to the snow and covered it in an inky blackness that lasted only a few moments. Then they sunk down, down, until only the distrubed snow showed any sign that something had happened there. Anna felt a release and she let out a breath, hands shaking. She knew what she'd just done.

And so did Pitch.

He didn't say anything more, but he did look around and then back to her. And in those eyes were all that needed to be said. And between the two of them, four centuries passed. She saw his hurt, and his resignation. And she saw what she felt, she saw what neither of them would ever admit:

That what they had was wonderful. And, could they have, neither of them would have ended it like this. They would have found another way. But there was no other way, and so that look passed between them and a sadness panged in the midst of Anna's solid acknowledgment of who she was and where she stood. They were going two different ways now, and Anna had made that decision. She wouldn't regret it. And Pitch knew that.

With one last look that struck her to the core, Pitch threw up his hands like claws and the shadows nosily funneled around him, torrenting up like an angry tornado until it collapsed in on itself, and all that was left was pot-holed snow. Anna could have collapsed right there, fallen asleep for a few hundred years.

"Anna!" A shout came from behind her, and Anna only turned around fast enough to see the blur of Jack Frost before he slammed into her, knocking them both backwards and Anna barely able to catch herself from falling. Jack squeezed her in the kind of hug that stayed on a person's skin, gripping her and exclaming into her shoulder, "I thought you were gone! I thought I wouldn't see you again! But you came back, you came back and..." He trailed off, holding her by the shoulders with wide eyes brimming with tears, panting and looking at MiM, then to Anna, then to MiM.

Then to Anna.

"Is that the Man in the Moon?"He asked deadpan. Anna nodded. "That is literally the coolest thing I have ever experianced, and I was frozen in a lake for a few hundred years."

Jack looked to MiM, who chuckled and nodded to Jack.

"It's been awhile, child." MiM greeted, and Jack looked torn between fainting and asking for an autograph. And Anna just wanted to hug him again, to wrap him up and shout apologies. But the others were there, and there was so much more to tell all of them, so much more to explain. She saw them all, looking in awe from Anna to MiM, all panting and in disbelief. All of them.

Except North.

Anna saw him and froze, a painful jolt going through her core. She saw him and expected a tongue-lashing, she expected to be thrown out again, she expected the worst.

The others slowly parted around them, everyone watching with Anna and North seeing only the other. Anna felt a lump in her throat and tried to swallow it down, but it hurt and only made the threat of tears worse. She bunched her hands into fists, then flattened them against her legs. And when she saw North, all he was doing was looking her up and down. As if he couldn't believe his own eyes.

And then he got to her face, to her eyes, and she saw him let out a shaky breath, tears filling his eyes and the swords falling to the snow beside him. He wasn't angry. He wasn't hateful. He was relieved. After all this time, after all that had happened, North was reaching his arms out for a hug. He was waiting for her to come home again. And Anna, for the first time since she could remember knowing this life she had led, was ready to go home too.

Half because she needed to know this was real, half to hide the tears quickly threatening to come pouring out, Anna sprinted forward through the snow and the icy cold air and ran hard into North's arms. She slammed against his stomach and wrapped her arms as far around him as she could, and she felt his huge arms wrap around her like tree trunks. Like warm tree trunks securing her to him, keeping her home, not letting her fall away again. She buried her face in his chest and gripped him hard with her hands. If it hurt him, he didn't let on.

"My little bluebird,"North muttered, voice straining, "I am so, so sorry." Anna shook her head.

"Shut up and keep hugging me. This is nice. I need this. Like, every-day need this." She croaked into his chest, and North laughed like she knew he could and he wrapped her tighter, almost painfully, but she didn't care.

"Of course." He promised, and she could hear sniffling that was either Tooth or Aster, and she was too embarrased to look. North laughed again, releasing her to look her in the face and smooth hair back, wiping tears from her flushed cheeks as he did. He was smiling through glassy eyes and panting breaths, and he looked for a moment over her head to where she assumed MiM now stood. When he looked back to her, amoungst the relief, there was pride and love and excitement.

"You have a lot of telling to do, little Anastasia." He said with a smile, and Anna took in a breath an nodded.

"Yeah, yeah I guess I do. But can we please go inside? I've seen enough ice and snow to last me the rest of eternity."


	12. Second Chance Hero

_-This will be the final chapter in this adventure. I want to thank all of you who stuck with it and gave such positive feedback. I love you each so incredibly much. Enjoy. -_

_-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-_

"He's going to use the fearlings to go after all of you. They know your fears, they _are_ your fears. And because of that he'd going to be able to get into your heads in the worst possible ways. We have to find a way to get past them and to Pitch." Anna explained in a very surreal moment. She tried to articulate a coherent thought when MiM was sitting with them at a table, holding a candy-cane stripped mug of hot chocolate. A celestial being. Drinking coco.

"Why don't we just have you get them first?"Jack asked, and Anna shook her head.

"That's not gonna work. Fearlings...they aren't like nightmares. I need to physically see them, I can't just feel around for their presence because they aren't rooted in reality. They're manifestations of the mind. That's some deep shit right there, we can't depend on me." She explained, and looked down at her cup, the steam rolling up an onto her face. "...Listen," She continued, and the other Guardians looked her way, everyone focused on her, "...I'm sorry about what happened. And what I did. But you have to know that I wasn't working for Pitch when I was here."

"We know." Tooth said delicately, sitting next to Anna. North sat across from her, with MiM on her other side and Aster and Jack between North and Tooth. Anna sighed, rubbing the heel of her palm into the side of her head. She was exausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

"We'll find a way,"Aster said with full confidence, "and when Pitch decides he's ready for a do-over, we'll be there to fight him back. Just like old times."

"Except,"Anna sighed, "Pitch won't wait. He's got everything ready, I'm surprised we haven't heard from him yet. He's unpredictable when he's angry, so he could attack tonight or tomorrow or next week."

"I might have a solution, then." MiM's voice grabbed attention like a magnet, everyone looking up and at him, listening but also stunned that he was sitting there with them as if they were all old friends. As if he wasn't one of the greatest celestial beings they'd ever encountered. As if he weren't the Man in the Moon.

"Yes, Manny?"North asked, and MiM got a small smile that Anna gathered was from North's little nickname, and he sat up a bit in his perfect white suit, wrapping large and delicate-looking hands around a mug, eyes shining grey and looking at each of them as if they were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

"I've watched over Pitch for a very long time. I knew him before he was the Nightmare King, back when he was just a man making sacrifices. And if there's anything of that man left, it's his keen ability to foresee how an enemy will react. You all have a pattern of attacking as one, and then spreading out. He'll expect you to do the same thing. So my suggestion is that you do exactly that, begin together, but never spread. He will expect that, and he will pick you off together."

"But then how will we get to him? We can't take all of the nightmares on at once." Tooth argued lightly, and Sandy made fast pictures above his head, something Anna was still lost to.

"Sandy's right," North agreed, nodding, "Pitch knows we could use Jack or Manny to take care of nightmares. He won't send those after us, he will use fearlings, yes Manny?"

"Yes." MiM agreed, "I imagine he'll begin with a few nightmares to separate all of you, and then when you do separate he'll send the fearlings after each person individually."

"What happens when we don't split up, then? Won't he force us apart?"Jack asked, and Anna sat up a bit.

"Not if he doesn't notice." Everyone looked to her, and the idea was forming in her head as she spoke, "If we can get me to Pitch in the beginning, he won't see you guys staying together. Either the fearlings will be waiting or he'll send them out, either way you're all together. You can fight each other's fears for them, so no one has to take it on alone."

"What about you?" MiM asked quietly, and Anna looked at him. She felt that he already knew an answer, she just hoped that hers was the one he was looking for. She took a deep breath in and said,

"I can handle Pitch myself. If I can stop him, all the nightmares either turn and run or disintegrate."

"Stop him, as in..."Jack said, looking worriedly at Anna. She put her hands under the table and breathed deeply in and out. MiM waited, watching her, and she bit her lip. She shook her head.

"I'm not going to kill Pitch." She said almost defiantly, "I'm going to try and find his connection to the current nightmares. It's a long shot, it might not even be something tangible that I can find, but if I can then that's it. He'll have to start all over again, no nightmares this time. No fearlings, either." She looked up.

MiM was giving her a soft smile.

"Manny will be watching out for you." North insisted, a look of worry in his eyes, but Anna shook her head.

"He has to stay with all of you in case something goes wrong. Pitch won't hurt me too bad, but he doesn't have as many reservations about all of you. Remember, for a period of time I was all that Pitch had for company. That may not seem like much, but when you're used to being alone...it means something. I'll be safer than any of you, and as far as I know Pitch doesn't have MiM's fearling made."

Anna didn't believe everything she said. The company thing, yes. But at this point, she wasn't sure at all how Pitch would treat her. He could very well want to kill her more than he wanted to so much as touch the other guardians. She could be his target this time. She just didn't know, but the Guardians couldn't tell her doubt. She didn't look at MiM to see if he could. There was nothing he could do on the subject anyway, she had made up her mind. She had done the most damage, if she took the most it was only fitting.

"Very well," North agreed, though he looked like he had more to say on the matter, "when Pitch attack, we will be ready. But as precaution, someone should go an watch over Jamie and the little one, in case Pitch wants to lure us in with them."

"I'll go." Jack offered.

"Me too." Anna added in, and North nodded.

"Very good, then. Sandy and I will relieve you two if Pitch does not attack by morning, yes? Jack, take snowglobe in case." He instructed as Jack and Anna stood back from the table, and handed the snowglobe to Jack. Aster caught Anna's eye, and in a moment of mutual apology, he nodded. She nodded back.

Anna and Jack walked to the top of the stairs, Anna ready to grab Jack's arm as he prepared to take off. He liked flying better, she realized, than using the snowglobe. She would have to have a serious discussion with MiM about why she got jilted on the whole 'flying' aspect of supernatural powers.

"Anna, wait, I have something for you." North called, and she turned around. MiM and the others were still in the room that they'd just left, but North was striding over to her with something in his hand. She looked back at Jack, and he nodded with a light-hearted smile. Anna then walked and met North halfway through the overlook. He smiled quietly at her, looking down to his large hand as he held it out to her. When Anna looked down, the fingers unfurled and revealed something tiny, something gold.

She had to bite her lip to keep it from shaking, and a lump formed in her throat. Quietly, she took the tiny golden telescope that must have gotten lost when she left. She held it, considerably larger in her hands, and took in a deep breath. She didn't look at North, fearing that if she did then everything would go to hell and she'd end up bawling. What she did instead was pocket the little telescope and rest her forehead on his stomach. His large arms wrapped slowly around her and his fingertips rubbed her back.

"I missed you." He said quietly, and Anna knew that he wasn't just referring to the most recent hiatus. He was talking about centuries. Even before she left for the first time. He missed the Anna that she'd started out as. And maybe, just maybe, she was back, even if there were other layers in there. Blinking and swallowing, Anna nodded and stepped back. Without looking at him, she nodded again and said quietly,

"Thank you."

When she got back to Jack, he was smiling and raising his brows.

"Sap." He teased as she held onto his arm. She pinched him.

-_Burgess-_

The night was quiet. All of the usual noise was stifled under thick blankets of snow, hushing the world beneath and making everything seem so much more beautiful. Unfiltered stars shone against a black sky, white-coated houses stood out in grey outlines, and a fresh, cold breeze would stir the snow every once and a while and make the top layer of glittering snow dance up before settling back with the mounds it came from.

"Everything seems too nice for a war to happen."Jack reasoned, laying back in the snow on the roof of Jamie's house. Anna was sitting in a spot she'd cleared, her arms wrapped around her legs and taking in the night.

"There's a really cool quote about that, but I just can't think of it right now."

"Hey, Anna?"

"Hm?" She looked over, and Jack was looking up at the sky with his arms folded behind his head. He looked like a child laying in bed.

"Why did you come with me that day? With all of this that you thought could happen, why did you still agree?" He asked, and Anna paused a moment. Then she looked back out to the sky and buried a hand in the white cloth around her neck.

"I got tired of you stalking me."

Jack laughed and understood what she meant. She smiled with him.

"Thank you, though," She continued, "for what you did. I don't think you knew exactly how much it meant at the time. Not just bringing me back to North, but for...you know, being a friend. I needed one that wouldn't go away."

"I just remembered what it was like being alone, how much I wanted a friend, too. I could be a real pain, but I wanted someone. I knew you were kinda the same, even if you had Pitch." Jack trailed off at the end, and Anna nodded quietly, thinking. Jack was silent for a few beats, and then continued, "Was he really your friend?"

He didn't have to use a name, Anna knew who he meant. And she had to think hard over her answer.

"...It was something else. I think it was a co-dependency. We needed each other for different reasons, and that's why it was so hard for me to leave, and for him to let me go."

"...You're not sure that he won't hurt you this time." Jack, Anna had to admit, could see more than anyone had ever given him credit for. She patted his stomach while still looking at the stars, and sighed.

"No, Jack, I'm not sure. Not even a little. I think I hurt him worse than either of us thought was possible, but I had not other choice."

"I don't want to lose you." Jack said quietly, wrapping her hand in his. "I haven't had a friend like you in a long time. I mean, the others are family, but...you know what I'm saying?"

Anna laughed and nodded, squeezing his hand back.

"Yeah, Jack, I now what you mean. I won't let anything happen to either of us, okay? I promise. This time, there's gonna be a fresh start at the end of this chaos. And we'll all live happily ever after."

"The end."Jack teased, and they both laughed through their fear. Two children, two lonely, scared children on a rooftop, who were about to fight something that they hardly knew, were making hopeful promises to each other. That was the thing about fear. It made anything seem possible.

_-A Cave Near Burgess-_

Around him, the Nightmares hoofed the ground and snorted, fearlings jetting across the walls like headlights on speeding cars. And Pitch sat in a high-backed chair, looking at the globe before him, at all the little lights. And his fingers clutched at the arm rests and he closed his eyes against the bright light. He felt anger, certainly. Betrayal, fury, a need for revenge. And Pitch felt an ache deep in his heart.

He knew who had put it there. And he knew the only way to make it go away.

Pitch knew how this was going to end.

"Lovelies," He muttered quietly, and the shadows and nightmares stilled around him, eyes opening and glaring forward at the globe, a seething fury building inside of him, "it's time to take back this world."

There was a rushing sound in Pitch's ears.

_-Burgess-_

"Nothing?" Jack asked, waking up around four in the morning. Anna shook her head, not even a bit tired.

"Nothing. Wanna tell North or wait awhile longer?" She asked, and Jack shrugged.

"Doesn't look like anything's going down tonight, but who knows? Let's wait a bit longer, I'll stir up some snow for the kids so they don't have school tomorrow." Anna smiled and elbowed him.

"Jack Frost, ruining education since the colonial days." He rubbed at his ribs good-humoredly, picking up the staff and standing up on the roof. Anna looked forward, about to relax. She was watching the shadows.

And the shadows were watching her.

"Jack!" Anna shouted, and stood up fast enough to knock him back onto the roof as something black with flaming red eyes ripped across the space above them. He called out and grabbed her, pushing back off the roof and both of them tumbling awkwardly to the street, rolling and stumbling to their feet. Anna, heart pounding, looked up at the roof to see the nightmare getting to its feet, head down and black smog floating from its nostrils. From the corners of the house, more nightmares arrived, and from behind them even more.

Anna knew Pitch couldn't have many left. This was the last wave, and the most desperate, and the most dangerous. She stepped forward, scanning around, feeling, trying to find him.

"Jack." Anna said in a moment of stillness, right before the war began, both sides of the line watching the other in a respite.

"Yeah?"

"Call North." She said, and this time it was Anna who started it.

She didn't take them all at once, but she had a bias against the one on the roof. Heart pounding and adrenaline searing her veins, she shot out a hand and felt the string intertwine with her fingers, lacing itself into her bones and cementing its fibers on her skin. The nightmare reeled back, hooves held high in the air, and Anna jerked her arm back violently. It fell without a sound, crashing onto the roof as the others instantly took up its place.

"Jack, now!" Anna shouted, and he shot up into the air with the snowglobe in his hand. Anna couldn't see what he did, the nightmares charging her and the strings, the metaphorical and intangible things connecting every living thing, forming a kind of spiderweb around her. She pulled at it like a fly caught in a trap, turning and watching as black sand scattered in heaps across the ground, rolling like thousands of microscopic marbles across the ground.

What must have taken Jack a few moments felt like it took years, and by the time Anna saw a white streak of frost shoot over the closest line to her, she was relieved.

"Took you long enough, Snowflake!" Anna shouted breathlessly, and Jack landed behind her.

"I've got it from here, go look for Pitch!" He shouted, and Anna shook her head, Jack breaking the first layer of ice and shattering the nightmares inside, only to have the other ranks come pouring in.

"Not leaving you here!" Anna managed to call, black teeth and red eyes gnashing at her, getting too close for comfort. For a terrible moment, her heart beat too hard and she wondered if this plan would actually work at all. She wondered if they'd gotten in over their heads, if the others couldn't get there in time. If she'd led them into another trap.

And then a boomerang came spinning through her line of vision, taking out an entire line of nightmares on the streets where no one seemed to notice the war going on outside, and Anna followed it back to its owner. Aster and Tooth jumped into the fray, Tooth accompanies by what looked like hundreds of tiny versions of herself, green and purple and gold feathers darking through the nightmares like tiny, beautiful bullets. She could hear North shouting somewhere, and gold dreamsand caught her perifrial vision.

"Go, Anna." MiM said to her, and she turned to see him standing beside her. No nightmares could touch him, she saw, as a beam of moonlight fell over him. They screamed terribly and bucked away from it, snarling and snapping their jaws at a MiM who was only looking at Anna. "I can't fight these creatures like you can, I can only ensure that no one gets hurt. But you're the one that can end this." His eyes held so much trust and so much faith that Anna herself felt most of her fears draining away.

And she nodded.

"Where is he?" She asked.

"That way. Waiting for you." He said, pointing to Anna's left. She couldn't see past the waves of nightmares that filled the unknowing streets, but she knew MiM was right. Pitch was there. She didn't look back, she didn't say anything, because she felt that if she did look back that she would see all of this crumbling, that if she saw her friends being overpowered then she couldn't go through with her part of this.

The world was in chaos around them, and she wondered how no one knew. The world was about to change, and they were sleeping. And yet all of this responsibility landed on Anna's shoulders.

"I've got you!"Jack shouted, and aimed the staff at the thinnest line of nightmares. Frost splintered out across nightmares, creating beautiful sculptures of terrible things, and Anna didn't wait for him to break them. She ran forward, heaving herself up and jumping across the backs of motionless nightmares. With her adrenaline she was able to throw herself into an alley before the nightmares found out what she was doing, and took off down the narrow street.

She was running, her feet echoing off houses, and the sounds of battle seemed like they were another world away. But her friends were there, and so how could she be here? Why wasn't she with them? She knew the answer, and she knew that what she had to do was important, but part of her would rather be with them. She would rather be standing with North and feeling every hit, every bite, just to know that he was there with her. To be certain that he was okay.

In the darkness of the alley, she got none of that.

When she got halfway down, about to turn the corner to where Pitch should have been, she stopped. Her footsteps came to a halt and the echoes silenced, her breathing all that could be heard in the narrow alley. To her right, sounds of war cascaded through the night, but where she was surrouned her with a bubble of silence. And something struck a chord in her, something familiar fell over the air around her. She closed her eyes, said something silently, and then called out,

"This isn't how it has to go, you know."

From behind her, she felt someone walk up, keeping their distance. She was looking at houses in front of her, and behind her someone she knew almost better than herself was looking at her.

"We both know that's not true. This is the only way it can go." His voice had none of the cockiness that it did when he spoke to North or MiM or anyone else for that matter. And for a moment, she was wondering if he were doing it on purpose, because for just a second it brought her back, and for all anyone else knew they could have been back in the cave and none of this madness could have happened.

For a moment, it was like they pressed rewind. And then there was the sound of a loud shout, and Shawna was reminded that there was no rewind. This was all they had now, and Pitch was right. She just wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She turned around, seeing Pitch standing in the darkness, his hands at his sides and a hard, pained frown on his face. His eyes were dark and his face looked ready.

"I have a question." Anna said, and he narrowed his eyes. Whatever was about to happen, she had to know one thing, "Why did keep me after you failed?" Pitch looked like he was going to say something for a moment, his mouth open, and then he paused. Pitch looked at her, up and down, and then a kind of resignation came over his face. And Anna knew she was about to hear the truth.

"Because you were all I had left."

Those words hung between them, and the worst part was that neither of them could do anything about them. They were said far too late, and now they held only the power to make them think of what could have been. And it hurt, but it needed to be said.

And Anna nodded, because that was the reason she always came back.

She almost didn't see when Pitch's finger twitched and his face tightened, but just in time she caught the shadow that ripped itself from the shadow of the house next to her. She stumbled backwards and reached out, snapping the string the moment it touched her. But Pitch wasn't done, and this attack wasn't going to be a kind one. It was going to be the last effort of someone who now, truly had nothing left.

It filled her ears, the sound of the rushing, living shadows behind her. Gasping, she spun around and reached out her hands, only able to do minimal damage before she was hit in the chest by what felt like a cement wall, sending her crashing backwards and sending an ache through her back.

"We could have been great, Anna," Pitch's voice filled her head as she slowly and achingly rolled sideways, out of the way of the torrent of shadows that hit the ground and rose back up like some kind of black snake, "we could have had the entire world for ourselves. I never understood why that was such a terrible thing."

"Well, that's because you're an incredibly unstable individual." Anna retorted, and felt her back scrape against a wall as she backed up, the shadows inches from her face as she finally managed to find the invisible strings tying them to this world, ripping them apart as they fell to the ground. "And I know that you can't have a lot of that left in you."

"Maybe I don't," Pitch's voice came from right behind her and she jumped forward. When she turned, Anna felt something slam into her face, sending her back but not letting her fall. It held her there in midair, like an icy, shadowy hand that had no substance and yet a firm, almost suffocating grip. She wrapped her hands into the shadows, searching for its life, trying to find that one thing that they all had. "Or maybe I have just enough left for one last hoorah."

His voice was bitter, and when Anna opened her eyes and saw the look in them, she knew what was going to happen. Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough to stop it. Even if she had wanted to.

The shadows let go of her neck, and the next time she saw them they were piercing through her chest, running her straight through from her back to her front. Now, with something like this, there was no blood. That was messy, that was something that a physical thing could do to you. What these shadows did was much worse. Anna gasped but no air found her lungs, and suddenly she was on her knees.

Her chest felt weak, too weak, and everything inside her felt cold. She grasped at her ribs, doubling over and trembling. This hurt more than she expected it to. It wasn't a painful hurt, it was a hurt that you felt to your bones. It was the kind of hurt that made someone want to be sick. It was a hurt that felt different because it wasn't skinning a knee or bumping a toe. This was a hurt that lasted.

This was the kind of hurt that knew how to do its job.

Shoes, black and clean, came into her line of vision as she struggled for air, as she grabbed at her ribs as if doing any of that could help relieve what she felt. Her hands shook and her lungs were on fire, and it felt like someone had frozen a solid block of ice over her heart. She wheezed, not able to look up, barely able to see the street below her. Above her, the only clear thing was a voice.

"I think it's important that you know something, Anna." Pitch's voice was quiet, and it was only the two of them in the world. "I don't want to do this." She felt something in the air above her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She clenched her teeth together to keep herself from saying something that could have made everything end so much differently, something that could have spoken a thousand words in just a few. But she couldn't. The others were fighting for her. She couldn't let herself have this.

_I don't want to do this, either._

_-Burgess-_

North closed his eyes against the fearlings, feeling a boomerang strike by his face. He took labored breaths, but knew he couldn't rest long. Jack needed him, and he needed Aster, and Aster needed Tooth who needed Sandy. They were fighting whatever didn't look like a fear to them, whatever didn't send an aching sense of dread to their bones. They were backed up to one another, and that was all that gave North strength to keep going, knowing that his friends were still there with him.

A fearling, tall and mangled and dripping black plasma, rose slowly out of the ground, its eyes on Jack. When North saw it, he was struck to the bone with a sense of loneliness, and for a moment he forgot who he was with. It was an unbelievable sense of solitude, and it almost did him in. He lost his breath, he blinked and grit his teeth, raising up a sabre just as the fearling stepped closer to Jack. Jack, who was shooting a blinding streak of frost to a fearling that had taken on the look of black dreamsand, though they knew that wasn't possible. Jack was fighting Sandy's nightmares, and North was fighting Jack's.

The fearling was so focused it never saw the blade fly through it's chest, and all that could be heard was a deafening screeching sound as it toppled backwards, flailing like an insect trying desperately to break free of a web before erupting in black smoke, drifing into the air like ribbons of smog. North let out a breath, keeping a firm grip on the sabres.

"North." MiM's voice came out of the quiet. North looked forward at MiM, who was splaying out his arms and casting a thin border of moonlight against the few remaining nightmares, keeping them at bay from the Guardians. He gave North a serious look with his light, angelic face, and North's heart sank.

"Is she...?"He whispered, voice trembling. But MiM shook his head.

"No, but I believe I know what's she's planning. Hold on just a bit longer."

"Will she be okay?" North asked, imagining Anna alone with Pitch. She had looked so strong when she ran into the alley, eyes hard and a fire about how she moved. She looked like someone who wasn't afraid of the world anymore. North wanted to see that for a very long time. He didn't want that fire to be put out when he was so far away from her. MiM looked away, as if feeling something, and then back to North.

He said nothing, and that was almost worse than what North was expecting. He shook his head, taking a step forward, but MiM stopped him with his words.

"They need you here, Nicholas." MiM said with a serious tone but a pained look in his eyes. North stopped, hands gripping the handles tight and eyes pleading. "She needs you here." MiM finished, and North had a moment where he could have run. He could have taken off and gone to her and helped her. He could have. But he didn't.

North, teeth pressed together hard enough to make Tooth faint, nodded and turned back to his friends, each fighting so hard, each panting and strained and terrified. He couldn't leave them. And he wouldn't. But as he charged head-first as Sandy's fear, he had only one thought in his mind: That if he did make it out of this, it would mean nothing if Anna did not join him.

-_An Alley in Burgess-_

She felt it come towards her, and Anna took the moment of stillness to let all of her sadness pass. All of her pain. She let it pour into the ground. And then she rolled out of the way faster than Pitch could have predicted.

He called out, Anna rolling to her feet and watching as a spear of black, jagged shadow sunk into the ground violently, right where her back had just been. Pitch stood as if in shock, hand wrapped around a handle and eyes wide. It all happened so fast. He couldn't have seen. He didn't even have time to look over to her.

Working almost on autopilot, with one last surge of adrenaline and a shout, Anna shot herself up from her feet and catapulted herself at Pitch. With his hand still on the spear, Anna's hand made hard contact with his chest and he jolted back. Not enough to release his grip, and so Anna had her hand pressed hard against his chest, her own body close to his bent one. She felt his shock, felt his chest tighten beneath her palm.

She had found it, right in his heart. Right where she'd always expected it to be. That thread of darkness that pervaded his body, connected to what was left of his army. It felt different, it felt stronger, but to Shawna it also felt so incredibly tired. It felt old. And she would have given anything for it not to have seemed so easy to break. It was too loose, it fell into her skin too easily, and she couldn't do it for a moment.

When this moment came, she expected that she would rip out the thread, knowing that someday it would grow back, and mourn later. But now, she couldn't do it. Not just yet. Because she didn't want it to be so easy, she didn't want to have full control over this.

Pitch wasn't even fighting back against her. He knew she had it. He knew what was going to happen. And this man that she had known so well, this man that had once been a general, who had a family and fought what now controlled his entire existence, this man that had been something so close to her that she didn't even have a name for it, now she had to take everything away from him. And she saw in that moment how different things could have been had he not been so manipulated by the shadows in his heart.

Frustrated, Anna rested her head against his collarbone, feeling hot and angry tears slipping down her face. It wasn't fair, she thought, that she got a second chance and he didn't. She took in a shaky breath, thinking of times when he had helped her sleep and put her mind at ease. In quiet moments when they would just sit and be with the other. When their existences only needed the other. She thought about how much she didn't want to do this. Pitch still hadn't moved, and she felt his heartbeat beneath her hand.

"I have to do this." She whispered with a cracking voice. Pitch's hand, slowly, came up and rested on the back of her head. It was gentle.

"I know." He breathed, and Anna shut her eyes tight. Then, like pulling off a bandage, she gripped his chest and pulled her hand back as hard as she could. She felt it snap off in her hand and Pitch gave a pained grunt, jerking forward and his body tremoring quickly. Loudly she breathed in and gripped his chest again, this time for balance for the two of them. Pitch's hand was still on the back of her head, and she heard the sounds of fighting and screaming drop off like someone had hit a mute button. Near them, shadows silently trickled away.

And Anna knew what she'd done.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "I wanted the world too."

Pitch paused, and she was afraid for a moment that he couldn't speak. But his fingers laced through her hair and she heard him speak,

"Just not the world I wanted." Anna breathed out, and shook her head.

"No." She agreed. And she waited there a moment longer, until Pitch's hand left her head and she had to step back. She didn't know what she expected, but when she saw his skin almost pale, his eyes almost a flat grey, she was surprised. He didn't look weak, but he did look...drained. As if he hadn't really slept in years. He stood with his head down, another hand on his chest where hers had been. He closed his eyes as if experiancing a moment of pain, and then collected himself.

Pitch looked at Anna without anything to use against her anymore. She didn't know how long it would take him to become this powerful again. She didn't know if he ever could. She didn't know what the future held.

"I don't want this to be the end." She said, and Pitch, for what it was worth, gave a small smile. A small bitter, but true, smile.

"We don't always get what we want, dear." His voice seemed to be quiet against his own wishes, and she swallowed, hands laying at her sides.

"You know, you get second chances too."

"I'm not a hero, Anna."

"You don't have to be." She looked into his eyes, knowing he was going to leave soon, knowing her friends were waiting for her. "You just have to come back to me."

There was a moment of silence between them, and Pitch breathed out, quirking a brow.

"Do you imagine it's that easy?"He asked almost jokingly. Anna shook her head.

"I don't know."

Pitch let out a breath again, this time to help himself stand straight, and gave her a last look before he turned and began to walk into a shadow-drenched alley attatched to theirs. Anna stood, watching him walk, and right before he dissapeared she called out,

"Pitch!" He stopped, and then he looked over his shoulder.

"Anna."

And that was all that had to be said. Because that was all that was left. With another brief moment, Pitch turned and left, and Anna went the other way. As she walked, one arm wrapped around her still-aching chest, she heard North's voice calling her name. She didn't answer, not just yet, she waited until she got back onto the street and saw them all. She counted, and they were all there, looking tired but not broken or hurt.

"Hey." She said quietly, but North heard her. He whipped his head around and saw her, eyes brightening and dropping the swords in each hand. He looked exauhsted, and yet he still barreled towards her and wrapped his huge, tree-trunk arms around her.

"Anna! Bluebird, you are okay! Oh, thank MiM!"

"You're welcome."MiM said lightly, and Anna couldn't believe she was laughing with tears still drying on her face, but she was. And North was laughing too, squeezing her tighter and tighter until she told him how bad her chest hurt. He stepped back, everyone surrounding them, Jack wrapping an arms around her sideways and squeezing lightly. She smiled into the face of the boy that had brought her back home.

The street was empty, and if anyone looked out their windows now they might not know that a war had just started and ended.

"Well, Anna,"MiM said with a smile, looking a bit tired himself, "I cannot say how proud I am of you. My strong child, who was born out of loss. You just saved the world." Anna gulped, panting, resting sideways on Jack.

"Not bad." Aster complimented, and they looked at each other before bursting into laughter.

"Not bad your furry butt, Bunny." Anna panted, and Sandy gave a thumbs-up to everyone, Tooth sniffling and holding back happy tears. Her babyteeth settled either on Jack's or her shoulders, and Anna rubbed her face.

"So what happens now?" Jack asked, and MiM raised his brows.

"Now? Now, my children, you go back to doing what you do best. Bring joy to others. Bring them hope and wonder and happy memories. For now, all you have is a world of children. Protecting it doesn't end with one vigilante fight, you know." MiM smiled and winked at Jack, who relaxed a bit. The moonlight around MiM began to thin, began to grow into one narrowed column.

"You're leaving?" Tooth asked, sounding dissapointed. MiM looked up at the moon as if he were surprised himself, but eventually did smile. He looked back an nodded, holding his arms out.

"It's my time now. You've done better than I ever could have expected. To share a little secret with all of you, the real reason I came down was because I knew in my heart that this was going to be your greatest triumph yet. I only wanted to be here to see you succeed. To see you become a family stronger than ever before."

"I needed you," Anna said, MiM looking to her with a light, knowing smile, "thank you." She said, and it was a thank you for many things. MiM winked and turned to North, who was panting and tired and covered in sweat, but looked like he couldn't have been happier had he been told that Christmas would come twice a year.

"Nicholas St. North, I put you and Anna into each other's lives for a reason. Take good care of each other. From now on, I don't know what the future has in store for you. But I know it will be great, and I cannot wait to see it." MiM assured North, who nodded.

"I am always one call away." North teased, and MiM chuckled. The moonlight above him grew thicker, and he sighed, looking back out at all of them. Anna had to admit that she felt an echo of sadness that he was leaving, even if he would always be there at night, even if she had everyone else now with her. MiM, just as the light almost blocked him out and everyone had to squint in order to look directly at him, turned to Anna.

"You will make a great Guardian some day." He said quietly, and with that the moonlight swallowed him up and he was gone, the column of light dissapearing and leaving an empty space where the Man in the Moon had once stood. Anna was panting, smiling, and running a hand across the side of her face. North was looking at her as if he had never been more proud, and he held his hand out to her.

Jack stepped aside as she took it, both squeezing the other's hands.

"You heard? You will be Guardian some day!" North said in reverence, and Anna, for the first time, didn't think that was such a crazy idea.

"Yeah, well, not better than me, but you'll get somewhere." Aster teased, and Tooth playfully punched his arm just as the sound of a front door slammed through the night. Everyone turned just in time to see Jamie and Sophie running across the lawn, looks of excitement on their faces.

"Jamie! Sophie!" Jack exclaimed as they ran up, Sophie jumping directly into Aster's arms.

"Did you see it? The light? What was that, was it aliens? Was it Pitch? Why are you all here? What happened?" Jamie shot off questions at a million miles and hour, and Anna rested her side against North.

"Tired?" He teased, and she looked up at him with a smile, one hand holding the white cloth around her neck.

"Not even a little." Anna and North, now four centuries older, both laughed.

_-Five Centuries Ago-_

Anna brushed off the snowman, and North stood beside her and surveyed the work. They both smiled at it, standing in the night snow, surrounded by the flickering candles in the tiny homes of village not too far away.

"It's magnificent." North admired, and Anna shook her head with a smile. North found wonder in the strangest things. She looked up at the sky, at the stars that littered the black backdrop, swirrling and dotting and lighting the darkness around them. It was beautiful. "Ah, yes, look at the world right now, Anna. It is such a wonderful thing, isn't it?" He asked, and Anna breathed out into the night air.

"Think it'll always be this way?" She asked, and North brushed snow off of the top of her head.

"With you in it? No." He said, and when Anna looked up at him he smiled. "I think, with a hero like you, this world that we know will become something even better than what it is now. I just hope, when that time comes, that I will be there to see what kind of things you bring to this world."

"You'll be there." Anna smiled.

"You think?"North asked teasingly. She looked back up at the sky, at the moon that shone the brightest.

"Yeah," She breathed, "I do."


End file.
